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Clusters and sector specific products
  • Understanding the needs of a cluster
    • Camp coordination and camp management
    • Education
    • Emergency shelter
    • Emergency telecommunications and communicating with disaster affected communities
    • Protection and security
  • Health
    • Understand the needs in the health cluster
    • Health systems
      • Care of the dead
      • Healthcare system capacity
      • Healthcare system and facilities
      • Healthcare system status
      • Quarantine restrictions
      • Healthcare workforce and training
    • Clusters / Emergency Medical Teams
      • Standardised health sitreps
      • Emergency medical teams (EMTs) type and location
    • Morbidity and mortality
      • Attendance / hospitalisation rates
      • Incidence / attack rate
      • Mortality
      • Prevalence
      • Vaccination coverage
  • Food security
    • Overview
    • Agricultural assessments
      • Affected agriculture
      • Agricultural damage and livelihoods
      • Agriculture assessments
      • Cost of damage to agriculture
    • Baseline
      • Classifying food security
      • Household economy analysis (HEA) baseline assessment
      • Existing conflict and displaced populations information
      • Reliance on imports
      • Seasonal calendar
      • Seasonal crop cycles with climatic zone mapping
      • Staple market values
      • Types of livelihood
    • Early recovery
      • Food-related diseases
      • Agriculture and land use status
      • Food security impact by demography/gender
      • Food security infrastructure
      • Urban food availability and quality
      • Nutrition and social protection
    • Monitoring
      • Access to livelihood inputs
      • Access to fuel and livelihood staples
      • Access to markets
      • Distribution and capacity of services
      • Emergency mapping market analysis (EMMA)
      • Food consumption score
      • Food security change scenarios
      • Household diversity indicators
      • Rapid market assessment
      • Locations and functionality
    • Operations
      • Food delivery assessments
      • Cash based transfers
      • Food distribution plan
      • Food distribution hubs
      • Needs, delivered, planned and gaps
  • WASH
    • Mapping in WASH
    • Monitoring WASH
      • WASH development
        • Drinking water services
        • Educational facilities services
        • Health care facilities services
        • Hygiene services
        • Sanitation services
      • Institutional WASH
        • Educational institutions and WASH
        • Health care institutions and WASH
      • National WASH
        • WASH needs assessments
        • WASH needs costs
        • Who, What, Where, When and for Whom
        • WASH needs severity
        • WASH needs gaps
        • WASH planning and coordination
        • WASH needs trends
    • The WASH package
      • Water
        • Access to clean water
          • Water sources
          • Water scarcity and stress
          • Water quality
          • Water contamination
          • Water access
          • Clean water demand
        • Household water
          • Household water storage and safe handling
          • Household water demand
          • Household water treatment (contamination)
        • Water handling
          • Source water demand
          • Source water scarcity and stress
          • Source water storage and safe handling
          • Source water distribution systems
          • Source water transport
          • Source water treatment (desalination)
          • Source water treatment (contamination)
      • Sanitation
        • Debris management
          • Debris sites and quantities
          • Debris requirements
        • Latrines
          • Existing latrines
          • Emergency/temporary latrines
          • Latrine requirements
        • Sewage
          • Existing sewage system
          • Emergency/temporary sewage infrastructure
          • Sewage system requirements
        • Sludge management
          • Effluent disposal requirements
          • Effluent disposal sites
          • Sludge pipes and septic tanks
          • Open defecation sites
          • Sludge pipes and septic tanks requirements
        • Solid waste managment
          • Hazardous waste requirements
          • Solid waste management requirements
          • Hazardous waste sites
          • Solid waste management sites
      • Hygiene
        • Environmental contamination
          • Ground water pollution
          • Air pollution
        • Environmental hygiene
          • Disinfected sites
          • Elevation and hydrology
          • Environmental hygiene education efforts
          • Land draining sites
          • Rubbish collection sites
          • Rubbish collection requirements
        • Hand washing
          • Handwashing cash support
          • Handwashing eduction efforts
          • Handwashing facilities
          • Handwashing social mobilisation programmes
          • Handwashing kit distribution sites
          • Handwashing supply and demand
        • Menstrual hygiene
          • Menstrual hygiene eduction efforts
          • Menstrual hygiene cash support
          • Menstrual hygiene products distribution sites
          • Menstrual hygiene product disposal sites
          • Menstrual hygiene product supply and demand
          • Menstrual hygiene social mobilisation programmes
    • WASH resources
      • The Global WASH cluster
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On this page
  • Strategic or operational?
  • Basemap, baseline or situational?
  • When might it be produced?
  • Intended audience
  • Influence on humanitarian decisions
  • Methods
  • Data
  • Mapping in Protection
  • Resources

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  1. Understanding the needs of a cluster

Protection and security

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Last updated 3 months ago

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Protection products are those that focus on vulnerable groups within the affected population, typically focusing on one or more of the four Areas of Responsibility (AoRs) with the Protection Cluster: Child Protection (CP), Gender-Based Violence (GBV), Mine Action (MA), or Housing, Land and Property (HLP). Security products typically report on incidents that have occurred, and may also show plans such as evacuation routes. Due to the sensitive nature of what this information may show, both protection and security products should be published and shared cautiously. In many cases they may only be shared within an organisation. Products referencing GBV themes are often pertinent to Child Protection actors (and vice versa) - there is often no clear thematic delineation nor a delineation in responsibility between the AoRs, so it is important to engage with all relevant AoRs.

Strategic or operational?

Both.

Basemap, baseline or situational?

Baseline and situational.

When might it be produced?

Protection products can be produced at any point. This is particularly the case during complex emergencies or in areas where there has been underlying tension in the past, i.e. areas that have a history of conflict. Demining programmes may occur during or immediately after the event, although these programmes will often be long term and therefore product updates may carry on longer too.

Intended audience

Anyone responsible for the protection of vulnerable groups, particularly Child Protection and victims of Gender-Based Violence. Anyone involved with demining activity. Agency security officers who need to know where incidents may have occurred. IDP camp planners who may wish to allocate specific areas or specific resources to different groups based on their needs.

If there are no obvious Protection actors engaging in a response, consider that staff from other clusters work on protection themes but may not consider themselves as protection actors. Share Protection related outputs with them as relevant. Also note that many Protection interventions are run joinly with other clusters. The table below lists Protection themes that concern other clusters.

Cluster/sector
Themes

Education

All education interventions have Child Protection considerations. Child referrals to the Protection services often come from Education sector actors. Are schools being used as shelters? Have temporary learning centres been set up?

Health

Referrals to Protection services often come from Health sector actors and service providers.

Food Insecurity

The CP and GBV AoRs consider food insecurity interventions to simultaneously be Protection interventions. Food insecurity is a common outcome following rapid onset disasters, and can lead to negative coping mechanisms such as child labour, child marriage or sex work to enable families to feed themselves. Food insecurity interventions therefore act as critical Protection interventions.

WASH

The proximity of latrines and bathing facilities to shelters has a bearing on Protection outcomes.

Shelter

Where are the gaps in shelters across the affected population?Female-headed households (FHH) may benefit from targetted support.

Influence on humanitarian decisions

The mapping of any reported incident or issue should highlight either broad areas of concern or hot spots where there may be groups of vulnerable people. In some cases this may lead to the need to evacuate vulnerable groups from the area. Cross-referenced with other information, it might be possible to address the problem by providing the appropriate aid. Anyone responsible for demining activity, this may lead to the evacuation of the local community where explosive remnants of war (ERW) may be scattered. If there are known minefields these will be shown as ‘no go areas’, with advice to avoid them.

Methods

Caution may need to be taken, particularly when publishing products on protection, as it is possible to aggravate already sensitive situations. It is sensible to use anonymous or data aggregated to a suitable level to mitigate this.

With security mapping, particularly relating to conflict, any maps representing land held should be represented as clearly as possible, particularly areas close to borders that are being fought over or areas that change hands frequently. To show the intensity of incidents, heat mapping is a good way of representing centres of activity. These maps also have a temporal element to them and lend themselves to animation too. Organisational evacuation routes should never be shown publicly without prior consent, as this may lead to an organisation being left vulnerable.

Demining activities have detailed standard operating procedures for the physical removal or destruction of mines and explosive remnants of war. With this in mind there is often a significant buffer around a contaminated area, and these are marked using internationally recognisable symbols. Areas can be divided into sectors in a similar way to those of search and rescue activities, so that they can be systematically cleared. Any evacuation routes or rendezvous points should be mapped.

With regards to Child Protection, as with GBV, disaggregating population by age-sex gives Protection actors critical detail on the numbers of children (boys, girls, infants, babies), women and men in affected areas. This is important for the coordination of a wide range of Child Protection and GBV measures.

The Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action states that ‘children' refers to any person under the age of 18. It is further subdivided into:

  • Babies and toddlers: ages 0-2 years

  • Pre-school age: ages 3-5

  • Early school age: ages 6-8

  • Pre-adolescence: ages 9-10

  • Early adolescence: ages 10-14

  • Middle adolescence: ages 15-17

The GBV Minimum Standards focus on ‘young adolescents’ (10-14) and ‘older adolescents’ (15-19), so adding a further age category will cover this:

  • Older adolescence: ages 18-19

Age disaggregation may not be this granular, work with what you have and mould into above categories where possible.

Data

All work in the Protection sector should be handled with the utmost caution and sensitivity. When requesting data, consider whether you are asking for the appropriate level of data, and whether it is appropriate to even be asking. Under the heading What information & data can illustrate the presence of GBV risk? the GPC website states:

It is fundamental to assume that GBV is happening everywhere. It is under-reported worldwide, due to fears of stigma or retaliation, limited availability or accessibility of trusted service providers, impunity for perpetrators, and lack of awareness of the benefits of seeking care. Waiting for or seeking population-based data on the true magnitude of GBV should not be a priority due to safety and ethical challenges in collecting such data. With this in mind, all humanitarian actors should assume GBV is occurring and threatening affected populations; treat it as a serious and life-threatening problem; and take actions based on sector recommendations, regardless of the presence or absence of concrete ‘evidence’.

From a data perspective, it is therefore important to be realistic with what data is likely to be available.

  • All baseline population products should be age-sex disaggregated, and further disaggregated to include ethnicity, languages, etc where possible.

  • Needs Assessments give an important sense of Protection risks. From a CP perspective, any data regarding unaccompanied or separated children is valuable.

    • Abduction, Kidnapping, Enforced Disappearance, Arbitrary or Unlawful Arrest and/or Detention

    • Attacks on Civilians and other Unlawful Killings, and Attacks on Civilian Objects

    • Gender-Based Violence

    • Migrants are often a marginalised people, particularly in rapid onset disaster situations. Migrants (some of which will be children) have many of the same Protection needs as local communities, but can find access to relief provisions challenging for a variety of reasons. The DTM dataset allows us to shine a light on their needs by referring to DTM baseline and situational data. To access DTM datasets: click on the above link > click on country of interest in map > Datasets, the datasets will be presented with the latest first.

      • Baseline data: check the latest Migrants Baseline Assessments for the affected country. Data exists on number of migrants disaggregated by admin area, but also by age, sex, status, priority needs, length of displacement, and so on. These provide valuable baseline data when a rapid onset disaster occurs.

      • Site Assessments are undertaken typically some months following a disaster, these can be reviewed to get an idea of what the key Protection needs may be in a new response. Some of these datasets need to be requested.

      • Rapid Displacement Tracking Datasets track the number of individuals and households who experience displacement over a given period.

Mapping in Protection

Resources

When publishing analysis, consider whether it is appropriate for it to be out in the public domain. Refer to the , consider the level of detail they make publicly available on their national/event responses to provide a steer. If in doubt, ask your Protection partners what the release conditions are - much of the work will be shareable on a need-to-know basis only.

Consult the to see if the affected region is listed as having protection risks. If so, bear these in mind (as per the Centrality of Protection) throughout the response, as many response themes may relate to the listed risks.

provides data on Protection risks including

The monitors print, broadcast, and web news media in over 100 languages from across every country in the world to keep continually updated on breaking developments . Its historical archives stretch back to January 1, 1979 and update every 15 minutes. Through its ability to leverage the world's , GDELT moves beyond the focus of the Western media towards a far more global perspective on what's happening and how the world is feeling about it.

The (UCDP) is the world’s main provider of data on organized violence and the oldest ongoing data collection project for civil war, with a history of almost 40 years. Its definition of armed conflict has become the global standard of how conflicts are systematically defined and studied.

GPC website
GPC Protection Risks Tracker
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED)
Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM)
Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT) event database
anywhere on the planet
collective news media
Uppsala Conflict Data Program
Global Protection Cluster
Global Protection Information Management Tools
Sphere Protection Principles
Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining
Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining - IMSMA
GPC Protection Risks Tracker
Gender-based violence programme data dashboard
Here is an example of the DTM data made into a MapAction product - applied to the Libya flooding event in 2023, showing number of migrants in affected Baladiyas (adm3). The number of migrants is broken down into Adult Men, Adult Women, and Children.
As above, but presenting priority needs for each affected Baladiya as opposed to table showing age-sex breakdown of migrants. Almost all of the listed needs have strong Protection implications, and so this serves as an important product for Protection actors.
Schools acting as IDP camps with total IDP population per Traditional Authority
Sierra Leone Emergency - Affected children
Haiti floods (2021) - baseline population demographics for affected communes
Schools hosting IDPs in Benghazi
Number of vulnerable individuals (Sierra Leone, 2017)