Integrating

Child protection
 Into
MIYCN AND MALNUTRITION
PREVENTION FOR MASTER TRAINER

By Diana Surur
Child Protection Specialist UNICEF
South Sudan
27th April 2021
 UNDER NUTRITION’S
CHILD PROTECTION
Policy is defined as
Child the responsibilities,
Protection measures and
activities that
UNDER Nutrition undertakes
NUTRITION to safeguard
children from both
intentional and
unintentional harm
 What do we want to Do
 Integration of Protection activities into the
MIYCN programme to target protection
principle (Avoid causing harm as a result of
your actions; Ensure people’s access to
impartial assistance; Protect people from
physical and psychological harm as a result of
Understa your actions and Assist with rights claims,
nd the access to remedies and recovery from abuse
Promoting Safety)
context  Why - Children are particularly vulnerable to all
forms of under-nutrition in times of instability
and crisis. The first 1000 days are critical for
child development, and it is important to make
sure that children’s growth is not
compromised.
 How - Identify groups that have the greatest
need for nutritional support, based on
prevalence rates of acute malnutrition, and
infant and young child feeding practices
 1. Contribute towards improving the nutrition
and wellbeing of infants and young children
(0-5 years), and the wellbeing of mothers and
mothers by protecting, promoting,
supporting and monitoring Maternal, Infant
and Young Child Nutrition (MIYCN) in
Protection programs
2. Check that nutrition programs are reaching
the most at-risk children by getting data
Needs disaggregated by age, gender and specific
community
• % of nutrition projects where there is child
safety and wellbeing, including family unity
• % of nutritional feeding centers for which
referral pathways for child protection cases
exist and are used
• % of supplementary or therapeutic feeding
centers with a trained child protection focal
points.
 Achievement
Develop proactive strategies to ensure access
to nutrition services for specific groups of
excluded children:
Mainstreami • children on the street
• children with disabilities
ng • children living in institutions
Protection • child-headed households
into • unaccompanied and separated children

Nutrition Pay particular attention to especially

vulnerable infants and young children:
Program • low birth-weight infants
• infants and children of depressed mothers
• children under two years not breastfeeding
• children with feeding difficulties
• infants and young children with acute
malnutrition, stunting or micronutrient
deficiencies

Regularly monitor default rates and failure to

respond to treatment
 that children are not left at home unattended while
Ensure caregivers or siblings attend nutrition appointments

that treatment programmes avoid family separation and

Ensure
Reduce
take into account the impact on siblings

risks of Ensure
that those working in nutrition have signed up to and
been trained in a code of conduct and are fully briefed on

harm child protection concerns

appropriate ways to handle children – e.g. allowing

Know parents themselves to place the child into the hanging
weighing scales

all caregivers of severely malnourished children to feed

Enable and care for their children during treatment
 Achievements Cont.
 Ensure that nutrition interventions do not
Reduce incentivize family separation, e.g. by delivery
of disproportionate benefits to children
risk of  Ensure that services do not lead to stigma or
exacerbat perceptions of ‘favoritisms’ within or between
communities
ing  Make sure there are adequate numbers of
existing female staff and nutritional promoters
 Take local privacy norms into account e.g. by
protectio providing private spaces for screening of
n risks malnourished children
 Ensure that nutrition staff know how to provide
psychosocial stimulation for infants and young
children
  Breast milk is the only food or drink
babies need in the first 6 months of their
life. It's best to carry on breastfeeding
Food in alongside an increasingly varied diet
South  Raw vegetable, such as cucumber and
carrots, a piece of fruit, a plain yoghurt,
Sudan banana, peanut butter, a bowl of
unsweetened cereal or porridge
 • Referral to protection officer for more
in-depth protection assessment in food
programming area
Ensure • Review protection assessment findings
children’ with security and programming staff to
s access decide if food distribution point needs
to be changed
to • Discussion with local communities
Required regarding increasing presence on main
routes to and from the distribution
assistanc point on distribution days
e
 Women empowerment is an
important factor in determining
the utilization of child health
practices. “When women are
Women Emp empowered, children thrive,
owerment and the countries flourish
reaping a double dividend for
women and children” (Former
UN secretary Kofi .A. Annan).
 Works to empower women in
Programs related to women’s
South Sudan through
empowerment in South
education and awareness.
Sudan are underfunded as
Awareness is one of the
gender-based violence is not
fundamental aspects of their
considered to be a priority
work in South Sudan, as fear
for government spending,
and stigma frequently
due to the country’s high
prevent women from seeking
rate of poverty.
the help they need.

Women Women’s empowerment in

South Sudan is growing.
Empower According to the United
Nations Development
in South Programme (UNDP),
approximately 475,000

Sudan women and girls are at risk

for physical and sexual
violence.
Empower women and
girls to fulfil their
potential – because
when one woman is
helped out of poverty,
she brings her family
and community with
her.
 Own and  Women in the rich family
children have greater decision-
health care making power than poor
class family.
Major  Education plays an
household important role to increase
Who in purchases women’s decision-making
power in all decisions that
the Purchases define empowerment.
household for daily
household  Working women are likely
to have more decision-
makes needs
making power in
decisions Visit to
family or
household than women
who are not working
relatives
 Women of older age (35-
49) years participate
Wife or more in decision making
Husband’s than their younger
earnings women.
 1) Decision to seek care
( presume that the decision to
seek health care can depend
on factors such as costs, health
beliefs, women’s power and
Factors autonomy to take decisions
and can cause the first delay in

affect accessing necessary obstetric

services. Assuming a timely
taken decision, physically)
Health (2) Reaching a healthcare
facility - reaching a
Care healthcare facility can act as
another delay, mainly due to

especially
the distance to health
providers, transportation costs
or road conditions. Finally, after
for women reaching a healthcare provider
(3) Receiving necessary
and care., in a timely and adequate
manner can be delayed as the

children
result of long waiting times and
poor organization at a
healthcare facility, a lack of
necessary competences and
supplies, or corruption,
resulting in an adverse
outcome of the complication .
 Every infant and child have the right to good nutrition according
Ensure to the "Convention on the Rights of the Child".

Nutrition in Why Undernutrition is associated with 45% of child deaths.

CP
Programs Improving child development and reducing health costs through
Encourage breastfeeding results in economic gains for individual families as
well as at the national level.

Awareness
Training Mothers and families need to be supported for their children to be
Ensure optimally breastfed. Actions that help protect, promote and
Support support breastfeeding include:
Encourage
Families and children in difficult circumstances require special
Ensure attention and practical support. Wherever possible, mothers and
babies should remain together and get the support they need to
Support exercise the most appropriate feeding option available.
Breastfeeding remains the preferred mode of infant feeding in
almost all difficult situations, for instance:
  Capacity building to
Nutrition workers in
awareness raising on
protection issues.
South Sudan Food  MIYCN counselling in all
and Drink Food is the villages in the
traditionally simple, counties with the support
based around of community nutrition
volunteers and mother to
Children pounded millet,
from which most
mother support groups.

Nutrition South Sudanese

 Awareness raising for
children and caregivers

in South get the majority of

their daily energy
on critical child
protection lifesaving
messages during
Sudan requirements. In intervention in nutrition
programs.
urban areas,
cassava fritters and  Continued active
participation in nutrition
bread can also be to expand participation
found. as a supportive structure
for influencing MIYCN
practices.

 Make sure there are
Adapt programming to
adequate numbers of
remove barriers to
female staff and nutritional
access
promoters

Take local privacy norms

Ensure that nutrition staff
into account e.g. by
Next Steps providing private spaces
for screening of
know how to provide
psychosocial stimulation
for infants, young children
malnourished children and
and their mothers
pregnant mothers

Check that nutrition

program are reaching the
most at-risk children and
women by collecting data
Monitor and evaluate
disaggregated by age,
gender and specific
community, and by
gathering feedback.
 Work with
community Set up support
Include feedback stakeholders to groups such as
and participation identify vulnerable mother-to-mother
individuals and groups
households
Nutrition staff
should know how
to identify and
Establish clear Respond
refer suspected
feedback effectively and
cases of violence,
mechanisms and appropriately to
abuse or
respond quickly to incidents of
exploitation, and
any concerns abuse
how to detect

Next steps
Create a child signs within
protection focal nutrition activities
Staff should be
point within the
able to signpost
nutrition
Strengthen other services,
programme to
systems and including legal
raise awareness
help children to services to
and receive
claim their rights respond to
complaints/reports,
incidents of abuse,
as well as
if required
registering
Staff should
separated know
children
how to identify
parents and
caregivers who
might be under
psychosocial
distress and need
support
THAN
K YOU