rch 2019

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CURRENT PROTECTION ENVIRONMENT, CHALLENGES AND NEEDS

Active hostilities in some parts of the country, notably the North West and North East regions, continue to be characterized by IHL violations with a disproportionate impact on civilians. Urban warfare - including through the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas - continues to take a toll on civilians and to destroy civilian objects such as schools and hospitals, leaving the population severely deprived of basic services.

The protracted crisis has depleted assets, productivity, infrastructure, and resulted in high levels of poverty.

Lack and loss of civil documentation continues to affect the population due to the displacement; the reduced functionality of Registrars’ Offices and cadasters, especially in areas affected by the conflict; the delayed or missed registration of vital events, particularly in areas that have been outside the control of the State for prolonged time. This is in turn creating an array of vulnerabilities, challenges in accessing rights and services, movement restrictions, and HLP-related issues.

The brain drain caused by the displacement outside of the country has depleted valuable human capital, with negative effects on the provision of specialized services.

The massive displacement of population, with morethan 6.2 million individuals in protracteddisplacement and 5.6 million refugees abroad, hasleft the social fabric distressed, with disruption ofcommunity and family safety networks. Prolongedand profound distress has left people with highlevels of unmet psychosocial needs.

Child Protection

Girls and boys of all ages continue to be exposed tomultiple protection risks and violations of their rights.Continuous displacement, exposure to violence,deepening poverty and a persistent lack of accessto services have taken a huge toll on children,women and girls, and individuals with specificneeds.

Children endure violence in their homes, schoolsand communities. Children face constant risksassociated with explosive hazards, lack civildocumentation to prove their existence, separationfrom caregivers, and out of sheer desperation manygirls and boys are married off at a young age andwithdrawn from school to work, often in dangerousconditions.

Grave child rights violations remain a criticalconcern with 2,354 incidents recorded through theMRM in the first nine months of 2018, includingchildren killed and injured through persistentuse of explosive weapons in civilian areas,recruitment and use of children by all parties to theconflict, torture, detention, abduction, sexualviolence, attacks on schools and hospitals anddenial of humanitarian access.

Millions of civilians in Syria continue to face diverse and interlinked protection needs. They are driven by a range of situations including the impacts of active hostilities, new displacements, dynamics linked to return increasing the stress on already overburdened communities, and cumulative long-term consequences of the crisis.

Whole of Syria Protection Sector:MESSAGING TO THE BRUSSELSCONFERENCE, MARCH 2019 Whole of Syria

Whole of Syria Protection Sector messaging to the Brussels Conference: March 2019

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Gender-based Violence

GBV in its various forms, particularly sexual violence and sexual harassment, domestic violence, family violence against women and girls and early/forced marriage, continue to pervade the lives of women and girls, especially adolescent girls.

The fear of sexual violence adds to the mental stress of women and girls. Many families are resorting to negative coping mechanisms with specific implications for women and girls, such as silence or for some families--resorting to early/forced marriage.

Mine Action

Ongoing hostilities continue to add new layers of explosive hazards compounding the contamination threat and increasing the vulnerability of people. An estimated 10.2 million people are living in communities reporting explosive hazard contamination.

Explosive hazards impact across humanitarian response by limiting access to humanitarian assistance, services, movement, livelihoods, and infrastructure. Explosive hazard contamination in agricultural land and key infrastructure such a schools, roadways, water systems further hinders access to basic services adding to existing vulnerabilities and posing a major challenge to recovery and resilience.

The scope and scale of the explosive hazard threat due to the presence of complex threats - from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in former ISIS areas to air-dropped munitions – and the cumulative effect of contamination with each year of crisis. Explosive hazards, including landmines, unexploded ordnance, IEDs, and other explosive remnants of war continue to accumulate and will pose a risk to life and safety of populations for a long period to come, far beyond active conflict.

The burden on health services for persons with disabilities, including survivors of explosive accidents and their families, will increase as explosive hazard contamination remains.

KEY ASPECTS OF PROTECTION SECTOR RESPONSE STRATEGY FOR 2019

Maintain a community-based approach in interventions to adapt the response to the evolving situation and including all affected population in need (IDPs, returnees, hosting/overburdened communities).

Maintain capacity to respond to emergency situations/new displacement including rapid deployment of mobile resources for urgent protection needs (presence, safety messaging, psychological first aid, needs identification etc.).

Provide integrated protection services via community-based facilities

- Targeted psychosocial support including through individual case management.

- Legal assistance and technical support on civil status documentation and HLP, including to facilitate durable solutions.

- Targeted assistance to address specific vulnerabilities.

- Community led initiatives to foster social cohesion and inclusion.

- Expand focus on persons with disabilities beyond the medical dimension.

Continue with advisory role to the humanitarian leadership in policy and advocacy on protection issues in line with the centrality of protection approach.

Continue mainstreaming protection across the humanitarian response, and foster integrated approaches for protection outcomes.

Promote inter-sector dialogue to better address the causes of harmful coping strategies and mitigate the protection risks that they generate.

Child Protection

Continue the investment in the No Lost Generation framework to enhance equitable access to (i) quality community-based child protection including psychosocial support interventions; and (ii) quality child protection specialised services for children at-risk and survivors of violence, exploitation, neglect and abuse.

Scale up multi-sector strategies and commitments directed towards child protection outcomes such as livelihoods and household economic security to address child labour.

Strengthen national social workforce as a way to scale up reach of child protection services.

Whole of Syria

Whole of Syria Protection Sector messaging to the Brussels Conference: March 2019

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Gender-based Violence

Increase awareness raising on sexual and reproductive health and GBV especially targeting adolescent girls and boys. Improve the accessibility of women and girls to safe spaces where GBV prevention and empowerment activities are provided and contribute to the resiliency of women and girls. Provision of psychosocial support for GBV survivors. Build capacity of GBV actors providing GBV specialized services to survivors.

Mine Action

Promote and expand existing humanitarian mine action capacities and improve the quality of services provided. Increase the efficacy of mine action through coordination with other sectors, as well as improved data sharing and unity of effort. Sustained delivery and integration of risk education, continued expansion of specialized services for persons with disabilities, including survivors of explosive hazards, and expand survey and clearance and clearance of explosive hazards.

CONSTRAINTS

Access for protection activities and contact with communities remains challenging in several parts due to

- Active hostilities, including inter-factional fighting (North West), growing insecurity and tactics of asymmetric conflict (North East).

- Selective access for protection actors, particularly for UN staff (Rural Damascus, South Syria, Euphrates Shield areas).

- Highly regulated and selective procedures for project approval, prolonging response time and impacting the selection of geographical or thematic areas of intervention.

- Inadequate presence of international specialised NGOs due to “entry barriers” and the reluctance in embarking in protection activities, perceived as sensitive.

- Social and cultural barriers in relation to specific activities (especially GBV).

- Limited access to areas in need and for the technical equipment and expertise needed to comprehensively implement humanitarian mine action activities.

Inadequate capacity in specific fields due to huge turnover of staff associated with changes in line of control, gaps in specific fields (highly specialised protection, MA, CP, GBV services, addressing disabilities, HLP, certain types of legal aid) and challenges in bringing in external protection expertise depending on who controls the specific territory. Restrictions on the ability to conduct sector specific needs assessments to improve identification of needs. Current methods of collecting data limit the ability to target needs, and the efficacy of response.

KEY ASKS FROM DONORS

Predictability and sustainability of funding (flexible and multi-year funding) for the full range of protection activities in all parts of Syria. This is vital to support approaches that are holistic and responsive to the needs of communities. Provision of funding driven by severity of needs and not areas of control, with clarity in donor strategies and priorities. Increase attention and commitment at all levels for the collective responsibility to address and mitigate the risks of gender-based violence. Scale-up support to specialised child protection initiatives including for children formerly associated with armed groups/forces and vulnerable children/families unable to access safe livelihood opportunities due to disability or other factors. Continued advocacy with relevant authorities and support for improved access of Mine Action sector service providers to areas in need, from Damascus and with Turkey for the North West, and cross-border in North East Syria. Continue to invest in capacity development initiatives especially in areas of identified capacity gaps. Advocate with the humanitarian leadership to support the protection Sector in maintaining the integrity and non-interference by parties in control in any dialogue on protection assessments. Give due consideration to qualitative information when evaluating protection activities as they cannot be viewed simply through numbers. Establish a periodical donor dialogue at a technical level with the Protection Sector (WoS & hubs).

Whole of Syria

Protection Sector

P P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

Rural Damascus

Me

di t

er r

an

ea

n S

ea

I R A Q

T U R K E Y

J O R D A N

L E B A N O N

Dar'a

Quneitra

Ar-Raqqa

Al-Hasakeh

Deir-Ez-Zor

Homs

Hama

Idleb

Aleppo

Tartous

Lattakia

Damascus

As-Sweida

Interventions by sub-district

1 - 1,000

1,001 - 5,000

5,001 - 10,000

10,001 - 50,000

50,001 - 860,000

Areas with no or limited population

COHERENCE OF RESPONSE BY SEVERITY OF NEEDS

6 - Catastrophic

5 - Critical

4 - Severe

3 - Major

2 - Moderate

1 - Minor

6.6%

36.1%

37.3%

10.6%

6.7%

2.7%

6.2%

37.5%

34.9%

10.7%

8.1%

2.6%

% of Protection interventions in each severity category relative to total interventions in Syria

% of PiN in each severity category relative to total PiN in Syria

INTERVENTIONS* BY GOVERNORATE

AleppoIdleb

Rural Damascu

s

Al-Hasa

keh

Homs

Ar-Raqqa

Hama

Tarto

us

Deir-ez-Z

or

Damascus

Lattakia Dar'a

As-Sweida

Quneitra

25%

17%13%

6% 6% 6% 5% 5% 4% 4% 3% 3% 2% 1%

TOTAL PROTECTION INTERVENTIONS DONE IN 2018

PERSONS IN NEED RECEIVINGAT LEAST ONE INTERVENTION

8,841,800 9.4M94% out of

TOTAL INTERVENTIONSTARGETED FOR 2018

2,981,800

PROTECTIONPARTNERS

233 261 out of 272SUB-DISTRICTS

2,471 out of 7252SUB-DISTRICTS

29%63%Syria hub Turkey hub

7% Jordan hub1%NES INGOs

32%with girls

28%with women

29%with boys

11%with men

Creation17/02/2019, WoS Protection Sector. Disclaimer: The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsment. Information visualized on this map is not to be considered complete.Source: Members, Jordan hub Protection working group, North East Syria (NES) INGOs, Syria hub Protection and Community Services sector, Turkey hub Protection cluster. Feedback: WoS Sector coordinator Elisabetta Brumat (brumat@unhcr.org); NGO co-coordinator Sameer Saran (sameer.saran@rescue.org); IMO Ambika Mukund (mukund@unhcr.org)

Whole of Syria Protection Sector: RESPONSE IN 2018 Whole of Syria

Protection Sector

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PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS

Whole of Syria

Urge all parties to strictly adhere to principles and standards of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including the prohibition on launching of indiscriminate attacks and the respect for principles of proportionality and precaution.

Urge all parties to stop all recruitment and use of children in the conflict. Any Syria peace talk must include agree-ments around specific measures to protect children from being recruited and used in the conflict. Such measures should include a commitment toi) prevent the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, through issuing command orders that no boys orgirls under the age of 18 should be involved in conflict in any combat or support role and put in place age assess-ment mechanisms;ii) expedite their release to civilian child protection actors for rehabilitation and return to civilian life; and facilitateaccess to the services required in view of their rehabilitation and return to civilian life;iii) develop protocols for children captured during military operations and allegedly associated with opposingforces, including do’s and don’ts for those detaining children.

In all high level dialogues with all parties prioritize gaining the commitment of all parties to stop attacks on all civilian infrastructure, in particular medical facilitates and transport, schools, and residential property.

ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE

CHILD RECRUITMENT

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCEUrge all humanitarian actors to ensure safe measures are in place to stop and prevent gender-based violence.

IMPLEMENTATION OF HUMANITARIAN MINE ACTIONUrge all parties to support humanitarian mine action and alleviate restrictions over the conduct of all activities, including explosive hazards survey, and clearance, as well as increased access to all areas in need, from Damascus, in the North West and North East Syria.

UNHINDERED HUMANITARIAN ACCESSUrge all parties to respect the principle of humanity and ensure unimpeded, regular and sustained humanitarian access for humanitarian actors in all parts of Syria to be able to provide quality protection interventions, including to: women and children allegedly affiliated with designated armed groups and deprived of their liberty for purport-ed security reasons, and persons living in areas reporting explosive hazard contamination; Respect independent protection needs assessments and protection monitoring; Commit to the protection of aid workers, local and international personnel alike, and guaranteeing that they will not be penalized or targeted for having provided assistance, especially as lines of control change.

ACCESS TO CIVIL DOCUMENTATIONSupport access to civil documentation, including in areas under the control of non-state armed groups, as well as the non-retaliation and non-discrimination of individuals based on the sole possession of documents they are able to obtain.

HOUSING, LAND AND PROPERTY RIGHTSCommit to continuous advocacy surrounding the specific needs and current situation of Syrian IDPs and Syrian Refugees in all matters pertaining to enacting or amending legislation affecting Housing, Land and Property rights, also in relation to the pursuit of durable solutions.

FREEDOM OF MOVEMENTUrge all parties, to ensure freedom of movement. Those who have lost their personal documentation or who could not renew it because of the crisis should not be arbitrarily detained, or discriminated, and the unity of their families should be protected. Charges should not be imposed at crossing points. Women and girls must not be limited in their freedom of movement due to restrictive conservative rules or societal customs.

KEY ADVOCACY MESSAGES - MARCH 2019

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