Child Protection Junior Officer (Knowledge management in child marriage)

Details

Mission and objectives

The Child Protection Programme of UNICEF Ghana is committed to ensuring that by 2022, girls and boys in Ghana, especially the most disadvantaged, increasingly benefit from an equitable and integrated child protection system that better protect them from violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect. The system is focus on the establishment of effective structures, functions and capacities that can prevent and respond to all child protection issues. It also seeks to integrate the actions of families (and children including adolescents), communities, formal and informal laws and practices together to protect children. To achieve these, strategic investments are made to: i) Bringing relevant policy, legal and regulatory framework in line with international standards and good practices ii) strengthening the capacity of formal and informal service providers actors to prevent and respond effectively to protection issues; and iii) supporting interventions aimed at behavioural and social change among girls, boys, families and communities. Among all children, adolescent girls in Ghana are disproportionately affected by child protection concerns, including exposure to gender discrimination, child marriage and female genital mutilation/cutting, sexual violence, unsafe migration and trafficking, among others. The purpose of the proposed UNV assignment is to provide assistance to the Child Protection section of UNICEF Ghana in further developing and strengthening its interventions for better protection of adolescent girls, by working closely with particularly vulnerable group of girls, their families and communities, service providers and other key local and national stakeholders.

Context

Adolescent girls remain highly vulnerable group due to the multifaceted protection, education, health, nutrition, and WASH-related issues that prevent them from reaching their full potential. They are often underscored by gender discriminatory norms, including gendered stereotypes of femineity and masculinity, which reinforce the inequities and power differentials. While child marriage is becoming less common in Ghana and has seen a steady decline from about 40 per cent in 1980s to 19.3 per cent in 2017/2018, one in five girls is still married or in informal union (cohabitation) before the age of 18 years. The high prevalence of adolescent pregnancy, mostly unplanned, remains a serious protection concern. The adolescent birth rate is 75 per 1,000 adolescent girls. Over 38 per cent of girls aged 15–19 years reported having experienced at least one act of sexual violence. To address these issues faced by adolescent girls, UNICEF Ghana has invested significantly in evidence generation and knowledge management in the areas of protection of children from violence and harmful practices, especially child marriage, gender and adolescents. There is a need to accelerate efforts to generate evidence in the area where there is knowledge gap, disseminate and use evidence in a strategic manner to inform programmes and policies to support adolescent girls to fulfil their potential.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of Child Protection Officer (NOB), the UN University Volunteer will contribute to evidence generation and knowledge management in the areas of child marriage, gender and adolescents. The UN University Volunteer will undertake the following tasks: 1. Support production of communication product in the form of a brief, infographic or flyer to provide an overview of key ongoing interventions, including the Ghanaians Against Child Abuse (GACA) social drive/campaign, the Child Protection Community Facilitation Toolkits and Promoting Adolescents Safe Spaces (PASS); 2. Support development, finalization and dissemination of the Most Significant Change Stories of the Promoting Adolescents Safe Spaces (PASS) initiative to capture how the initiative has made transformative changes in the lives of adolescent girls over the years; 3. Contribute to evidence generation activities in the areas of child marriage, gender and adolescents, including the Impact Evaluation of the Promoting Adolescents Safe Spaces (PASS) initiative; 4. Support organizing and participating in field visits related to child marriage, gender and adolescents to capture transformative human interest stories, document programme success, areas of improvement and key lessons learned; 5. Support organizing and participating in meetings, workshops and events related to child marriage, gender and adolescents, and document the meeting results; 6. Assist UNICEF Ghana to strengthen the collaboration with KOICA in the area of child marriage, gender and adolescents with improved linkages to the ongoing KOICA-support project in innovation and youth engagement “Start-up Lab” 7. Support any other tasks assigned by the supervisor Under the guidance and direct supervision of the supervisor, the UNV will have opportunities to work closely with various members of the UNICEF Ghana Child Protection team, as well as other teams (Health; Education; Social Policy and Inclusion; Adolescents, Gender and Youth; Social and Behaviour Change; Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation; Communication and Advocacy; Partnership; etc.) Chances of interacting with other external partners at various levels will be also available, including the Government of Ghana and CSO/NGOs. All work-related travel for the planning, implementation or monitoring of activities, including transportation, accommodation and security clearance and will be supported by UNICEF as per UNICEF rules. Human resource investment is at the heart UNICEF’s strategy to deliver results for children. UNICEF will find necessary opportunities to invest in capacity development of the UNV as a capable child protection professional, through supports to implement an annual learning and development training plan, online and off-line trainings and field visit opportunities. The post will be managed under the rules of UNICEF, and the UNV will benefit from work-related facilities and equipment provided by the office, including a laptop and a desk.