Consultancy: Consultant, Child Rights and Counter Terrorism-Child Protection Programme Team

Job no: 553618
Contract type: Consultancy
Duty Station: New York
Level: Consultancy
Location: United States
Categories: Child Protection

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, hope

Consultancy Title: Consultant, Child Rights and Counter Terrorism

Section/Division/Duty Station: Child Protection Programme Team/ Programme Group/ NYHQ

Duration: 11.5 Months

Home/ office Based: Remote

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

UNICEF supports achievement of SDG 8.7, to take immediate and effective measures to secure the prohibitions and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including the recruitment of child soldiers. UNICEF is also working to enforce Article 39 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the Optional Protocol to the CRC on Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict and the Paris Principles and Guidelines for children associated with armed forces and armed groups. UNICEF supports recovery and reintegration of children affected by armed conflict in an environment that fosters health, self-respect and dignity of the child. UNICEF further takes action to support governments in their obligations to fulfill the 12 UN Security Council resolutions related to protecting children affected by armed conflict, and repatriation and reintegration of foreign children stranded in conflict zones, and the recognition that children associated with armed forces or armed groups are survivors of human rights violations and should be treated primarily as victims. UNICEF also remains guided by its Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action, its Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and its Child Protection Strategy 2021-2030 all of which prioritize protection of children in armed conflict.

For decades, UNICEF has supported children affected by armed conflict, including those who have been recruited and used by armed forces or armed groups. More recently, that has included child affected by conflicts that involve UN designated terrorist groups, whether children were recruited and used by the group, were born into a family with ties to the group, or are from a family or community that is perceived to have links to the group or has lived under the group’s control.

In this context, governments are often using punitive measures such as counter terrorism and national security frameworks in their handling of children affected by conflict rather than supporting them as survivors of grave violations of their rights and who are in need of special protection and services. Children are often interrogated for military intelligences, detained arbitrarily and without due processes on the basis of family ties, and rarely provided with services to address their experiences while they were under the control of the armed group. This work implicates UNICEF’s work for child justice and to end detention in all its forms.

UNICEF’s Child Protection Programme Team in HQ is coordinating work internally on child rights and counterterrorism across divisions and regions. At the same time, UNOCT and CTED have been actively engaged on issues related to children with links to UN designated terrorist groups. UNICEF, as co-steering committee co-chair, continues to lead on engagement at the interagency level, with UNOCT, OHCHR, and other UN entities and launched a “one UN” Global Framework to address the issue of foreign children stranded and Iraqis in Syria. While joint, the framework maintains a separation of activities and funding streams between humanitarian and development activities and CT/Security activities, particularly as they relate to children. As implementation of the Global Framework expands, UNICEF will continue working with other agencies to mobilize funding for priority countries, while coordinating humanitarian and development aspects of the work as they relate to children and caregivers, while UNOCT lead coordination on security and counterterrorism aspects.

Scope of Work:

• The consultant will support UNICEF’s global level work within interagency fora related to the protection of children as it relates to security, counterterrorism, and child rights, for example on DDR, PRR, child reintegration, GCTCC, Global Framework, and others, and provide comments on related documents, reports, standards, proposals etc.
• The consultant will support UNICEF’s global level internal and inter-agency coordination and delivery of support for foreign children and their caregivers who are stranded in or returning from conflict zones.
• The  consultant will support the Child Protection in Humanitarian Action team in NY to develop briefing notes, talking points, and track engagement at all levels, the Office of the Executive Director, and across all regional offices and country offices on children and counter-terrorism, reintegration of children in the context of counter-terrorism, and the foreign children file.
• The consultant will support UNICEF COs and ROs with requested technical guidance, backstopping programmatic interventions (to include field missions as required), and bilateral engagement on issues related to child rights and counter terrorism, to include children associated with or with family ties to designated terrorist groups, children detained as part of national security measures, recovery and reintegration, and other issues emerging from security and counter terrorism measures.
• The  consultant will support coordination between PPD, PFP, EMOPS, communications, and other business units as necessary to support UNICEF-wide engagement on children rights and security-related issues, including public and private advocacy, talking points, and participation in other working groups.
• The consultant will support coordination with UN agencies and other partners working on human rights issues on common issues of concern related to children and security, to include tracking country level programming and policy development.

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

•  Action Points
• Monthly Report
• Detailed work Plan

Qualifications

Education:

• Master’s degree in Law, human rights, child protection, counterterrorism and security, social work, anthropology, psychology, related social sciences. 

Language Proficiency:

• Fluency in written and oral English

Work experience:

• Minimum 8 years’ experience in child protection, law, humanitarian programme management, human rights, and or security / counterterrorism; experience in operations in the field an advantage.
• Demonstrated ability to work in matrixed organization across various units.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate with senior leadership on highly sensitive materials.
• Strong communication skills, organizational, inter-personal and leadership skills
• Ability to be flexible and work well under pressure in a fast-paced environment, with complex projects and deadlines from different stakeholders.
• Demonstrable ability to work independently, take initiative, and identify new opportunities and approaches.
• Experience in budgeting and financial reporting.
• Experience with leading coalitions and with relationship management.
• Strong English language writing skills.

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills Desirable:

• Proven distance management skills
• Experience in a variety of ‘thematic’ child protection programmes
• Familiarity with human rights, DDR and terrorism legal frameworks 
• Experience with regional and country level operations
• Legal background in human rights and/or security / counterterrorism an advantage
• French, Arabic, Russian language skills an advantage

Requirements:

• Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and provide Personal History Form (P11) Upload copy of academic credentials
• Financial proposal that will include:
• your daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability
• Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.
• At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.
• Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

Consultant is expected to submit short technical proposal summarizing following:

• Consultant’s understanding of the assignment, scope of work and deliverables
• Methodology of doing the analysis
• Information needed and source of data proposed to be used for analysis
• Support needed from UNICEF to undertake such assignment

In addition, the consultant is required to submit a financial proposal against the three deliverables listed. The financial proposal to include the number of working days against each deliverable and include consultant’s daily charge rate in USD.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.  

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

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, culture, appearance, socio-economic status, ability, age, religious, and ethnic backgrounds, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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 also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.