What is child safe guarding and why is it so important?
There is widespread recognition that humanitarian activities bring benefits, and also potential risks to children. Risks to children can come from staff, volunteers, contractors, partners inappropriately designed programs, and poor management. Keeping children safe and child safe guarding is a commitment to ensure that we “do no harm” and out work further complements the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and as a result of our actions, children are protected from all forms of abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence.
Child safeguarding concerns range from unsafe programming through to the most serious sexual crimes against children and adults. All child safeguarding incidents represent a failure by humanitarian actors to fully protect children and communities, and we must not rest until we have eliminated all abuse.
We know that in humanitarian emergencies, safeguarding risks to children and adults increase and diversify. At the same time, the need for rapid, large-scale humanitarian action and large numbers of newly recruited staff and volunteers also puts child safeguarding systems under huge pressure. So whilst we are focused on responding to urgent needs, we must be aware of the increasing and wide-ranging risks to children.
Sexual abuse, exploitation and other forms of harm become possible when there are imbalances of power, and there are significant imbalances of power between a community in need of aid, and organisations providing aid, and even more so in humanitarian contexts. Emergencies threaten basic livelihoods and increase food insecurity, and existing power inequalities (around gender, race, age, sexuality and ethnicity) may also be strengthened. Humanitarian actors control of resource, services, and opportunities and this is a form of power, and is open to abuse by people, especially those who make decisions about who can access aid or services, when they can access them, and how often. We know that violence against children increases in emergencies and local services and systems can break down (schools, medical, legal and social services are all negatively affected during a humanitarian emergency), as do informal community groups (such as women’s groups and school clubs) and family networks are usually impacted too. All of this can result in situations that make it more difficult to recognize, report and prevent violence against children.
There are also safety risks within the environment – for example, if a program has not been designed with children in mind, we may cause accidental harm (for example, if a child falls into an uncovered latrine pit, or we set up a child friendly space beside a toxic waste ground). If a program or building has not been constructed safely, it can also pose serious risks to children and adult safety (for example, if a hastily built classroom collapses). All projects and programs must be designed to minimise the risk of harm to the children they come into contact with or impact upon directly or indirectly by taking sufficient account of child safety, whatever the focus of the work. Young people and adults with diverse genders, sexualities and bodies are also at increased risk of harm in many contexts.
Common risk factors within our organisations during a humanitarian response including recruitment, weakened or non-existent reporting mechanisms, high staff turnover, recruitment or redeployment of inexperienced staff, remote supervision, working through partners or government actors, insecurity, work pressure, and a rapidly evolving context can bring significant and rapid internal safeguarding challenges.
Humanitarian actors must be committed to ensuring that children and adults are safeguarded at every stage of the response cycle. We must apply lessons learnt from previous emergencies, including learning lessons from specific cases and including near misses. Local organisations can bring a wealth of local knowledge and expertise on preventing and responding to abuse in different forms, and many will have been working on safeguarding and protection issues for decades. Engaging and leaning from these groups will help establish successful survivor-focused responses and referral pathways to ensure we provide the right support and protection to those who have been abused or exploited.
Safe, confidential and ethical referral to services is a crucial step in ensuring a survivor-focused, trauma-informed response to abuse and harm. One of the first steps in a humanitarian response will be to ensure that your organisation or program existing referral pathways are still functioning. Establish relationships with protection or GBV partners in the Protection Cluster (usually other INGOs or UNHCR) to determine the best referral pathways. Wherever possible, also consult with local grassroots agencies including women’s rights groups, anti-FGM activists, LGBTQI groups who can advise you on the safest referral paths for these issues. Remember that medical assistance is time-sensitive and some survivors may need immediate emergency care.
Feedback mechanisms and accountability to affected populations
Feedback and reporting mechanisms are one way that we can hear about the ideas and concerns of the children and communities we are working with. We must set up effective mechanisms to:
- Reduce the risk of harm to children and other community members that might be caused by the behaviour of our own staff or by the design of our activities
- Improve the quality of program design and implementation, making our work more effective, relevant and appropriate
- Improve our relationship with and acceptance by communities, helping us move towards working in true partnership with communities
- Demonstrate to our donors and other partners that we are able to deliver on quality processes such as accountability in program design and implementation.
Many beneficiaries report that they would prefer both face-to-face communication with humanitarian actors to share concerns about sensitive issues such as corruption and sexual exploitation or abuse. Preferred feedback and reporting mechanisms tend to include face-to-face helpdesks, conversations with focal points or other staff and free telephone hotlines.
Mainstream keeping children safe
Training our staff, partners and volunteers is a critical step in ensuring effective safeguarding of children and adults. All staff must receive a refresher training in child safeguarding at least once a year, in a language that they understand well. A signed declaration (that they have completed the training) should be completed by all who attend. All staff and volunteers who are deployed to a humanitarian emergency should have been trained in child safeguarding before they are deployed. To ensure that everyone is adhering to the same standards, you may need to run an all-staff induction training on child safeguarding. This must include partner organisation staff and any new suppliers or temporary staff that you bring on board, ideally within 24 hours of them joining the response. Include partners in training design as they may be able to lead some or all of the child safeguarding training themselves. This training should be context-specific, which means that it should also cover safeguarding issues that are common to your context. Your context-specific elements might include additional information on FGM, Child Labour, Child Marriage or the use of physical and humiliating punishment in schools. When training suppliers, drivers, and groups involved in your response, chose key messages that you need to ensure are understood, and focus on discussing those with the group, and ensuring they understand your organisation’s policy, including rules about behaviour, and how to report concerns.
If you have integrated child safeguarding into your organisation’s systems and processes, it will be relatively straightforward to report regularly on whether these measures are working, during regular reports on your organisation’s performance. Reporting should not focus only on the number of cases that have come to your attention, or been dealt with. It should include how your systems and processes are working to prevent the risk of abuse; your organisation’s risk register is a good place to start. Bear in mind that organisations believe there is a significant under-reporting of suspected or actual cases by staff and communities. Lack of reports are more likely to mean your policies and procedures are not working well rather than abuse is not taking place. If you or anyone in your organisation are keen to learn more about child safe guarding, or to have in-house training, please contact info@humanitarianadvisors.org to discuss your requirements.
All children have the right to be safe and protected. Our interventions, even during humanitarian emergencies must strengthen children’s safety. We are all responsible.