CHILDREN on the Move Rapid Evidence Assessment July 2020 This Project Was Funded with UK Aid from the UK Government
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WHAT WORKS TO PROTECT CHILDREN on the move Rapid Evidence Assessment July 2020 This project was funded with UK aid from the UK government. The management group is grateful to UNEG for the support and for selecting this proposal for funding of this important System Wide Evaluation initiative. 6 © United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), July 2020 Published by UNICEF This is a publication produced by 3 United Nations Plaza ODI, an independent research New York, NY 10017 institution, with the Evaluation For further information, please contact: Offices of ILO, IOM, UNHCR and Evaluation Office UNICEF as well as the Office of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Research of UNICEF. The analysis 3 United Nations Plaza and recommendations of this New York, NY 10017 evaluation do not necessarily [email protected] reflect the views of ODI, ILO, IOM, or UNHCR or/and UNICEF. UNICEF Office of Research Innocenti Via degli Alfani, 58 50121 Florence, Italy [email protected] REPORT WHAT WORKS TO PROTECT CHILDREN on the move Rapid Evidence Assessment Rachel Marcus, Amina Khan, Carmen Leon-Himmelstine and Jenny Rivett Contents 5 6 19 Acknowledgements Executive Summary 1. Introduction 32 40 66 2. Overview of studies 3. Strengthening child 4. Child and and initiatives protection systems to protect family-level interventions children on the move 108 120 127 5. Conclusions 6. References Annex 1: Summary of studies reviewed 152 153 Annex 2: Annex 3: Evidence Gap Map Methodology 5 What works to protect children on the move | Rapid Evidence Assessment Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to the management group for this review – Tina Tordjman-Nebe, Mariel Kislig, Ramya Subrahmanian, Shivit Bakrania, David Rider-Smith, Elma Balic and Guy Thijs – for their guidance throughout the process, and for comments on a previous draft. We also thank Amanda Melville for detailed comments on the draft, Kathryn O’Neill for copy-editing and Giles Pitts for support with production of the report. Finally, thank you to Green Communication Design for the layout production. Acronyms CFS child-friendly spaces MHPSS mental health and psychosocial support CPIMS child protection information management system NGO non-governmental organization FGD focus group discussion NRC Norwegian Refugee Council GBV gender-based violence NZIMS New-Zambia immigration management system GBVIMS gender-based violence information management system PLaCES Protective Learning and Community Emergency Services IDMC Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre RCT randomized control trial IDP internally displaced person REA Rapid Evidence Assessment IEC information, education SBCC social and behaviour change and communication communication ILO International Labour SMART Safe Migration and Reduced Organization Trafficking Project IOM International Organization SPLA Sudan People’s Liberation Army for Migration UASC unaccompanied or IPEC International Programme on the separated children Elimination of Child Labour UN United Nations IRC International Rescue Committee UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund KII key informant interview UNHCR United Nations High LGBTQI lesbian, gay, bisexual, Commissioner for Refugees transgender, queer/questioning, USAID United States Agency for intersex International Development M&E monitoring and evaluation WFP World Food Programme MENA Middle East and North Africa WHO World Health Organization 6 What works to protect children on the move | Executive Summary EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Photo: © ILO Background AApproximately 50 million children can be considered ‘on the move’. Of these approximately 13 million are child refugees, 936,000 are asylum-seeking children, and 17 million children have been forcibly displaced inside their own country (Bhabha and Abel, 2019; International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2020). Other children considered ‘on the move’ include migrants and returnees. 7 What works to protect children on the move | Executive Summary Children are among the most vulnerable groups of migrant and displaced populations, facing risks to their survival, health and education, and more likely to experience violence, exploitation or abuse. Children experiencing violence “often find themselves running alongside violence on their journeys, rather than leaving it behind them” K (United Nations, 2019, p. 15), while those primarily displaced by other factors face IS R W new risks. In addition to their age, the very fact of being displaced – often without O L H I G documentation, and unable to speak the language of their destination – combined with H R I S economic need increases vulnerability to abuse and exploitation and, often, xenophobic K discrimination (ibid.). Many of these risks vary by age and gender, with boys and girls facing different levels and types of risks in terms of violence, trafficking, child labour and child marriage (United Nations, 2019), while children and adolescents with disabil- ities, and adolescents and youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/ questioning/intersex (LGBTQI) face discrimination that overlays and intersects with these risks. Moreover, children who move on their own often lack safe and regular options to reunite with family members (UNICEF, n.d.). Children are among the most The context and nature of movement affects these risks. For example, migrants in transit vulnerable groups of migrant are exposed to sexual and gender-based violence (GBV), forced labour, extortion and and displaced populations, exploitation, among other abuses (IOM, 2020); while economic deprivation among facing risks to their survival, health and education, and refugees and internally displaced people increases the likelihood of engagement in more likely to experience hazardous or exploitative child labour and, in some contexts, of forced and early child violence, exploitation marriage (United Nations, 2019). Education is disrupted (sometimes for long periods or abuse. of time) and affects learning outcomes of children on the move. Where emergency education services are provided, they are often of low quality (Nicolai et al., 2020) and many children never return to formal schooling (ibid.). All of these risks are likely to be amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent years, global frameworks such as UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and the Global Compact on Refugees, have helped develop a more supportive legal and policy environment for protecting children on the move. At the same time, evidence on what works and what does not work in protecting children on the move, and why, has not been synthesized across a range of groups (refugees, internally displaced children, migrant children, returnees, children moving with and without families, and in different settings). To fill the evidence gap, this rapid evidence assessment (REA) aimed to answer three questions. • What interventions have been effective in ensuring the protection of children on the move? • What are the implementation factors that make these interventions effective or that hamper effectiveness (for example the context of the intervention, and specific design features such as who is targeted)? • What kinds of social welfare and child protection systems are linked to effective interventions? This report provides an assessment of the reviewed literature and its key findings, and identifies gaps. 8 What works to protect children on the move | Executive Summary Methodology of the review and of the included studies The review involved a comprehensive search for relevant documents, screening of studies according to key inclusion and exclusion criteria, and assessment of studies for quality and relevance over a three-month period. It used systematic principles, tailoring these to the time available for the assessment. Studies eligible for inclusion had to describe an intervention that aimed to enhance the protection of children on the move, and to provide evidence of changes in outcomes at one of the following levels: laws and policies, systems and services, families and children’s wellbeing. Included studies had to be published from 2005 onwards and be in English, French or Spanish. We only included health and education sector interventions with clear child protection objectives and outcomes. While no studies were initially excluded on methodological grounds, all 89 studies of which: studies meeting initial inclusion criteria were assessed for relevance, methodological transparency, linkage between evidence cited and conclusions, and gender-sensitivity, using a bespoke quality and relevance assessment scale. This led to a total of 21 were high-scoring 149 studies. To enable us to concentrate on the most insightful studies, we excluded low scoring studies, leaving us with a total of 89 studies, of which 21 were high-scoring and 64 were medium-scoring 64 were medium-scoring.1 Of these high- and medium-scoring studies, 56 were evaluations (32 performance 4 rated with a borderline score evaluations, 24 impact evaluations) and 33 were research studies – defined as studies that explored the effects of a policy or process or compared different approaches to enhancing the wellbeing of children on the move but were not based on a formal eval- uation. Only 20 studies involved a counterfactual – these were all Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) or quasi-experimental studies of initiatives working directly with families and children in areas such as mental health and