Neglect and the protection of refugee children: A report on research in Jordan and the Gaza Strip, Palestine

NEGLECT is widely understood as the most prevalent form of maltreatment that children are exposed to globally. To date, however, there has been minimal focus on the extent and nature of child neglect in settings of displacement and armed conflict.

We encourage further debate by sharing findings and analysis from a study into child neglect in two humanitarian settings: Jordan and the Gaza Strip, Palestine. Field-based research included 170 one-to-one interviews, focus groups, and arts-based workshops. The research team also conducted 20 interviews with humanitarian professionals between February 2021 and March 2022. Four locally based non-government organisations (NGOs) collaborated on the project, recruiting researchers and workshop facilitators in Jordan from Syrian, Sudanese, Somali, and Iraqi refugees, and in the Gaza Strip from Palestinians registered as refugees with the United Nations (UN). Following training by the core research team, these ‘peer researchers’ conducted interviews within their own communities. The researchers included five children. Those interviewed included 33 children aged 14 to 18 years. According to the widely accepted definition of ‘child protection in emergencies’, 2 protection efforts should be focused on responses to and prevention of violence, abuse, exploitation, and neglect. The first three may be observed either as they occur or through their immediate impact. By contrast, neglect harms children through lack or insufficiency of effort. Neglect may give rise to violence, abuse, and exploitation but the timeframe through which this occurs can be long-term and the chain of causation difficult to identify.