Child Protection Specialist (Ending Violence against Children and Child Marriage), P3, 364 jours, Kinshasa, DRC

Contract

This is a P-3 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 5 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 122,798 USD and 160,794 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, protection.

More than nine out of ten children in the DRC have experienced some form of violence. Sexual violence is endemic, with almost 40% of cases of sexual violence affecting children. Similarly, only 40% of children under the age of 5 are registered at birth and only 13% have a birth certificate. 29% of young women aged between 20 and 24 are married or in a union before the age of 18. This is the national average, with rates of over 50% and even 60% in some of the country's provinces. Finally, almost 13% of children are engaged in one of the worst forms of child labor. Preventing and responding to violence against children is therefore at the heart of UNICEF's work in the DRC.

Based on the evidence of the disproportionate deprivations, vulnerability and exposure to violence and exploitation faced by adolescent girls in the country, UNICEF has focused on addressing the multiple abuses and risks faced by girls through multi-sectoral programming as a flagship area of the child protection programme. Support has been given to the government to speed up its efforts to prevent child marriage, through the revision of the DRC's five-year national action plan against child marriage, and direct assistance to more than 5,000 girls threatened with or victims of child marriage. In addition, to promote the full participation of adolescent girls and young women in the crucial issues that concern them, UNICEF helped the government to organise the first DRC Girls' Forum, which brought together more than 100 girls from the DRC and Africa, as a national platform for including girls' voices in national priorities and programmes.

The programme aims to strengthen its activities to prevent and respond to sexual violence against girls and child marriages through innovative strategies to prevent social and behavioral change and the provision of appropriate multi-sectoral services, in both humanitarian and development contexts. To this end, UNICEF is also committed to generating new data on adolescent girls to inform evidence-based and contextualized programmes to protect and empower women and girls, while addressing discriminatory social norms against women through innovative social and behavioral change interventions.

How can you make a difference?

As the Child Protection Specialist based in Kinshasa, you will contribute to the development of a programme to end violence against children, and in particular sexual violence and child marriage in the DRC by supporting the Government and civil society organizations in:

• Developing, implementing, monitoring, and reporting on the progress of programmes to prevent and respond to sexual violence and child marriage at national level
• Developing technical guidelines and programme management support at provincial level in collaboration with field offices to facilitate the administration and delivery of concrete and sustainable contributions to efforts to combat sexual violence and child marriage.
• Strengthening innovative partnerships to galvanize concerted action around these issues, around a new approach to safe spaces for adolescent girls and women.

You will be based in Kinshasa with missions to the provinces to implement new national programme to combat sexual violence and child marriage. Under the supervision of the head of the child protection section, you will have the following responsibilities:

• In collaboration with the relevant Ministries, the Child Protection Specialist will update the DRC's strategy to combat child marriage and finalize UNICEF's multi-sectoral strategy on child marriage, which is part of the country's national strategy.
• The Child Protection Specialist, in charge of the development and national scaling up of the programme for prevention and response to sexual violence in emergency and development contexts, will supervise the implementation of interventions in the targeted intervention zones and will use the data thus collected to document and analyze the new approaches that will be implemented, and propose appropriate actions.
• The child protection specialist will support the government and civil society organizations in setting up a mechanism for coordinating action on sexual violence and child marriage, particularly for adolescent girls.
• The Child Protection Specialist will work in close collaboration with key sectors within UNICEF (Behavior Change Communication, Social Protection, Health, Education, Gender and Adolescents) for the development and implementation of programmes and will be the focal point for the Child Protection Section within the office's Adolescent Strategy Implementation Working Group.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An advanced university degree (master’s or higher) in international development, human rights, psychology, sociology, international law or any other relevant social science field
• A minimum of five [5] of relevant professional experience at the international or national level in the implementation of activities relating to the prevention of and response to violence against children and child marriage.
• Experience working in developing country and/or familiarity with emergency and humanitarian contexts is considered an asset.
• Relevant experience in programme development in areas related to child protection in a UN agency or organisation is considered an asset.
• Fluency in French and English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others.

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements. UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

This position has been assessed as an elevated risk role for Child Safeguarding purposes as it is: a role with direct contact with children, works directly with children, is a safeguarding response role. Additional vetting and assessment for elevated risk roles in child safeguarding (potentially including additional criminal background checks) applies.

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable female candidates are encouraged to apply.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.