Principle 1: Integrate ECCD dimensions in emergency humanitarian relief efforts in the first few days of an emergency. As noted earlier, the highest mortality rates occur in neonates and infants, particularly in the acute phase of an emergency. Applying an ECCD lens to disaster assistance means ensuring that early childhood protection measures are put into place right from the start. In particular, priority must be given to the immediate provision of emergency health care for neonates and under fives. Strategies should include measures to ensure that caregivers are supported to care for their children, such as implementing gender-sensitive food distribution systems and safety nets, and providing targeted support for pregnant and lactating mothers by supporting breastfeeding accompanied with mother-infant stimulation. WHO recommends combination nutrition/stimulation programs which emphasize appropriate feeding practices and responsive parenting and notes that nutrition programs that contain a psychosocial component which support caregivers are more effective in promoting growth and positive child development than nutritional programs alone.
Applying an ecological perspective means that nutrition, health and survival interventions must be accompanied by community based support to primary caregivers. Beyond ensuring that the immediate needs of young children are met, attending to the safety and well being of mothers is of paramount importance (see Principle 3).
Principle 2: Normalize and stabilize the child’s environment and establish safe spaces for children and female caregivers. One of the most beneficial things for children after a traumatic event is for their day-to-day environment to return to “normal” as quickly as possible. Most of the literature points to the need for safe spaces, child caregiver bonding, community and child involvement, and care of caregivers in response programming, as the key to successful interventions in the context of emergencies.
Child Centered Spaces (CCS) or Safe Spaces (SS) are intended to provide some of these needs by providing structure to the day, a sense that ‘things are getting back to normal again’. The spaces provide a safe place where children can play, find creative expression and learn, surrounded by caring adults. The centres promote children’s and caregiver’s health through the education of staff in hygiene and physical hazards as well as disease diagnosis, prevention and treatment. This may also be supported through the provision of nutrition and therapeutic feeding if needed. The safe space is also a place where the community gathers and can be reached for engagement in humanitarian activity. Safe spaces are intended to bring children’s needs into prominence by mobilizing and supporting communities on behalf of children and by engaging parents and other caregivers in effective interactions with children.
Some hard evidence exists on the effectiveness of Safe spaces or Child Centered Spaces interventions. A recent control group study on 3-6 year olds in IDP camps in Uganda found significant differences between CCS and non-CCS intervention groups. The intervention group showed less emotional distress, hyperactivity and attention problems, less peer interaction difficulties and fighting, more pro-social and cooperative behavior, better well-being and life skills, improved health and hygiene resulting in decreased exposure to disease and sickness, and increases in cognitive skills such as literacy and numeracy skills. Another key finding of the study was that CCS’s were found to be an important child protection tool, providing statistically significant effects in increased safety of young children in the camp and at home, and decreased sexual exploitation and rape of very young girls.
Principle 3: Protect girls and female caregivers from gender based violence. Safeguarding the well-being and safety of mothers and female caretakers is a central concern for ensuring the well-being, protection and development of children during crises. The growing body of data from the wars of the last decade is finally bringing to light “one of history’s great silences”: the sexual violation and torture of civilian women and girls during periods of armed conflict. What is especially disturbing, however, about the statistics from the past ten years is how rife the phenomenon appears to have become. Although overall more men than women continue to die as a result of conflict, women and girls suffer myriad debilitating consequences of war. So much so, according to a 2002 report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, that “women and children are disproportionately targets” and “constitute the majority of all victims” of contemporary armed conflicts. During times of war and displacement, women and children, especially girls, are often easy targets for sexual and gender-based violence (GBV) because such conditions make the vulnerable even more vulnerable. A tragic consequence of acts of rape, often systematic, are children borne of rape who may be rejected by their mothers who are also overwhelmed by the physical and emotional pain of rape and further stigmatised and rejected by their extended families and communities
Women are at risk of rape in or near camps, particularly when the camps are poorly planned and/or administered. Lack of security restricts access to health care, food, shelter and safe water and is a major obstacle in delivering assistance and support interventions, particularly in armed conflicts. Specific GBV interventions organized by sector include
- Protection
- Water and Sanitation
- Food Security and Nutrition
- Shelter and Site Planning and Non-Food Items
- Health and Community Services
- Education
In the last several years, an increased commitment to GBV by international and locally-based institutions and agencies has resulted in the development of several key tools to facilitate the implementation of programming. In 2002, a publication on Emerging Issues in GBV Programming was published, and addresses some of the critical issues and challenges to implementing GBV programming in conflict-affected settings. A year later, a Gender-based Violence Tools Manual for Assessment and Program Design, Monitoring and Evaluation was produced to assist program planners and implementers in designing research and program initiatives. In 2003, UNHCR published an update to its 1995 Sexual Violence against Refugees: Guidelines for Prevention and Response, entitled the Sexual and Gender-based Violence against Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons: Guidelines for Prevention and Response. In addition, new guidelines issued in 2005 by a task force of the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) provide detailed recommendations for the minimum response required to address sexual violence in emergencies and hold all humanitarian actors responsible for tackling the issue in their respective areas of operation: Guidelines for Gender-based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings: Focusing on Prevention of and Response to Sexual Violence in Emergencies.
However, according to the 2001 assessment carried out by the Reproductive Health Response in Conflict (RHRC) Consortium, foremost among the limitations to establishing broad-based GBV programming was the failure — at both the international and national levels — to prioritize violence against women as a major health and human rights concern. The result was a lack of financial, technical and logistical resources necessary to tackle the issue. Many survivors were not receiving the assistance they needed and deserved, nor was sufficient attention being given to the prevention of violence. The outcomes of an “independent experts” investigation spearheaded by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) the following year echoed these findings in their conclusion “that the standards of protection for women affected by conflict are glaring in their inadequacy, as is the international response.”
Principle 4: Attend to separated children and particularly at risk groups:
The loss of a parent is highlighted as one of the more immediate traumatising events for a child, linked with later psychiatric disorders, particularly depression. This concurs with resilience research indicating that one of the most widely found predictors of resilience has been the presence of parental figures. Researchers agree that parental availability may provide a significant buffer for the child’s experience of war-trauma exposure, and parental separation may lead to a higher incidence of traumatic experiences that have an adverse impact on children.
Guidelines such as the Inter-Agency Guiding principles on Unaccompanied and Separated Children emphasise preventing separation, preserving family unity, rapid reunification and, in the case of orphans, community based care as opposed to residential care. When immediate caregivers are not available, fostering by extended family members or community is commonly regarded as preferable to institutional care. Institutional care is most damaging to the youngest children under 5 or 6 and should be a last resort after extended family and community care options. In all of these contexts, it is important to have mechanisms for monitoring the well-being of foster children to guard against their marginalisation and discrimination. Fostering can create that essential caregiver-child bond if the community has ownership, there is an awareness of child rights, children and families are prepared for fostering, and children have some choice in where they are placed.
Because very young children who are separated and abandoned are those most vulnerable to loss of physical shelter, food and good health, implementing rapid assessment of population groups and immediate identification of separated/abandoned children, registration, and unification, is a first priority during the initial and ongoing stages of a crisis. This also applies to other at-risk groups such as severely malnourished children, and HIV AIDS orphans.
Principle 5: Establish integrated, holistic community based services with cross cutting links to health, nutrition, and psychosocial support. An integrated approach for early childhood development in emergencies is based on the premise that the physical, psychological, and social aspects of a child’s development are narrowly inter-related and inter-dependent, and recognizes that intervention in a single field will provide only limited results. Coordinated action in the fields of health and nutrition; water sanitation and hygiene; early stimulation and learning; and protection are regarded as vital ingredients for effectively caring for young children in emergencies. Preserving family support systems and community infrastructure includes agriculture, water and sanitation, health, education facilities, and food supplies. An often overlooked dimension in emergency interventions is linking child care activities to potential income generation activities. Trusted older women and young girls are particular resources that can be tapped into to provide care, and free mothers and other children from child care so that they may engage in other activities for income and schooling. Working with families and communities to support extended family systems, and incorporating a strong gender sensitive focus recognizes that in emergency situations, assistance to young children needs to be enveloped in a wider penumbra of child protection.
