Child Safety and Protection Specialist

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential.

UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and strives to establish children's rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behaviour towards children.

UNICEF insists that the survival, protection and development of children are universal development imperatives that are integral to human progress.

UNICEF mobilizes political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a "first call for children" and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families.

UNICEF is committed to ensuring special protection for the most disadvantaged children – victims of war, disasters, extreme poverty, all forms of violence and exploitation, and those with disabilities.

UNICEF supports the Government of Kazakhstan in strengthening mechanisms for the prevention, identification, referral and follow-up on cases of violence against children; enhancing state-run specialized services for child victims of crimes; and improving the monitoring and data collection on child protection, with a focus on violence against children. Communication for behavioural and social norms change interventions target the public to reduce and better address violence against children, in particular to condemn and report on violence against children, including gender-based violence and discrimination, to increase knowledge of non-violent discipline, and to prevent bullying and discrimination among children and from caregivers. UNICEF supports the development of programmes for strengthening parenting skills through the health and education systems.

The digital environment is becoming increasingly important in most aspects of children's lives as public functions, including education, health care, government services, and commerce, are increasingly reliant on digital technology. One in three internet users in the world is a child and children are accessing the Internet at very young ages across a diverse range of devices. While Internet opens up new opportunities for the achievement of children's rights, it also increases risks of rights violation or infringement: harmful materials, unacceptable behaviours and potentially dangerous contacts online and offline. Online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA) is increasingly becoming an issue of concern. The production, consumption, possession and sharing/distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has soared over the past decade. Therefore, children themselves, their parents, guardians, communities, professionals, the private sector and governments need to recognize, assess and find the balance between protecting children online while respecting their human rights and building their digital skills capacity.

The international UNV support will be needed to advance child protection program in Kazakhstan in strengthening the national system for prevention and response to violence against children. This work will include specific focus on child online safety. Periodic, not regular business trips to the regions of Kazakhstan are possible.

Under the direct supervision of Child Protection Specialist, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

1. Support the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Child Protection pro-gram interventions related to violence against children (hereinafter VAC) prevention and re-sponse, in line with UNICEF’s Child Protection Strategy (2021 – 2030) and the UNICEF Country program for Kazakhstan (2021-2025). In particular, the UNV will support the data collection and analysis for planning and monitoring purposes, and provide all relevant sup-port to the design, budgeting and operationalization of programmatic activities, and will take part in field visits and missions.

2. Support the development of the Minimum Child Protection Package by assisting with stake-holder consultations, document review, and coordination with the programme team and na-tional counterparts.Contribute to the planning, implementation, and monitoring of program-matic activities related to strengthening the information management systems on violence against children and child-care.

3. Support the collection and organization of international good practices on child protection, online child safety, and violence prevention to assist in advocacy, knowledge sharing, and program activities.Support the design, planning, implementation, and monitoring of pro-grammatic activities related to child online safety and protection:
3.1 research dissemination and advocacy for acting on recommendations
3.2 Support the planning and coordination of social and behavior change communication campaigns, assisting with logistical tasks, content development, and stakeholder en-gagement.support to and leveraging ICT companies’ expertise and resources as part of UNICEF collaboration with business sector
3.3 contribute to holding events/consultations with youth on child online safety

4. Support Child Protection program in fundraising efforts: drafting fundraising briefs and con-cept notes; peer-reviewing thematic materials for digital individual giving campaign.

General operating and coordination tasks
1. Attending partners events, office planning and coordination meetings
2. Ensuring daily communication with Social Policy & Child Protection team and other sectors
3. Providing inputs to donor reports and annual reports
4. Supporting correspondence with national counterparts
5. Supporting external and internal purpose documenting exercises
6. Supporting Child protection in communication and visibility efforts and events

Furthermore, UN Volunteers are required to:
• Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading rele-vant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day);
• Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host coun-try;
• Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including participa-tion in ongoing reflection activities;
• Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publica-tions/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.;
• Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers;
• Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering, or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.