Myanmar Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2025 / Part 3: Cluster Response Plan

3.5 Protection

Key figures

Severity of needs

PiN and target

General Protection

"It's as if we've come out of a world war, and some of my relatives are unrecognizable to me."

- Displaced woman in Rakhine.

General Protection

Severity of needs

PiN and Target Map

Needs

Civilians face direct threats from military actions, including indiscriminate attacks, airstrikes, forced recruitment, arbitrary detention, GBV, as well as injuries and fatalities related to landmines and explosive ordnance proliferation. Between January and September 2024, partners documented more than 3,200 protection-related incidents and nearly 5,900 human rights violations. This affected more than 194,900 people, 39 per cent of them children. The reported incidents took place mainly in Rakhine, Shan, Sagaing, Kachin, Magway, and Kayin. The degradation in service provision is increasing risk levels particularly for persons with specific needs including women, children, elderly and persons with disabilities, forcing more people to rely on harmful coping strategies. Armed clashes, including airstrikes, indiscriminate shelling, and landmine explosions, have created an urgent need for MHPSS for children and families including a critical demand for explosive ordnance risk education, prevention, and response services, especially for children facing family separation in conflict-affected areas.

The stateless Rohingya population in Rakhine continues to face severe threats and hardships, characterized by recurring violence and renewed displacement. Close to 248,000 Rohingya are now confined to camps, with some 106,000 newly displaced since February 2021, and between 12,000 and 20,000 Rohingyas fleeing across the border to Bangladesh. Their security situation remains precarious and living conditions continue to deteriorate with no prospects for a secure return in the foreseeable future.

Response

The Cluster, in conjunction with its AoRs including child protection, GBV, and mine action will implement a multilayered strategy aimed at safeguarding fundamental rights and reinstating the dignity, safety and psychological wellbeing of impacted populations. In the face of escalating vulnerabilities in Myanmar, the Cluster will prioritize the provision of targeted and specialized protection support to some 4 million people exposed to heightened protection risks. Displaced communities throughout Myanmar, along with stateless Rohingya populations in Rakhine, will remain a priority due to their heightened vulnerability and unstable living conditions. Affected communities will also require legal aid to secure civil documentation, enabling them to access nationality, freedom of movement, and residency while facing displacement. The Cluster will expand the rollout of MHPSS across all AoRs to address the deep psychological impacts of the ongoing crisis, providing essential pathways for recovery and resilience. The Cluster will continue to strengthen the assessment of protection needs, monitoring, incident reporting, and joint protection analysis among protection actors to improve the effectiveness of its interventions and ensure a coordinated response with the centrality of protection serving as a foundational element for programming, advocacy, and dialogue with duty bearers. Advocacy, mainstreaming, and localization efforts will be intensified through strategic capacity-building initiatives.

The Cluster will maintain sustained engagement with frontline partners in conflict-affected hard-to-reach areas to ensure their active involvement in protection leadership, information sharing, and risk identification. It will advocate for improved access to resources, empowering local actors, enhancing information exchange, and strengthening their capacity to address protection challenges effectively.

Monitoring

In 2025, the Cluster will enhance and optimize access to primary data for situation monitoring, protection incident reporting, and response monitoring through the implementation of the 5W framework. By integrating AAP principles, humanitarian organizations can enhance the quality and impact of their assistance, ensuring the availability of accessible channels for affected communities to provide feedback for organizations to assess the relevance and effectiveness of their interventions. This feedback informs real-time adjustments to programmes, ensuring they meet the evolving needs of the affected population.

Child Protection Area of Responsibility

“I am worried that children who work outside the village will never come back"

Adolescent Muslim girl in Rakhine.

CP

Severity of needs

PiN and Target

Needs

Children are uniquely and disproportionately affected by persistent conflict, displacement, and socioeconomic instability in Myanmar. The conflict has severely weakened the protective environment for children, with parents/caregivers increasingly overburdened and schools impacted by militarization and repeated attacks. Current child protection risks identified through the Child Protection Case Management Information Management System Plus and partner reports include explosive ordnance, recruitment and use by armed forces and groups, sexual exploitation and abuse, physical and emotional maltreatment, trafficking, forced displacement, and family separation. The highest reported incidents were psychosocial distress and psychological violence followed by physical abuse and neglect (the latter affecting primarily younger children). Child labour and child marriage are typically underreported and significantly affect girls and boys, particularly displaced children. As found in the 2024 MSNA, roughly 30 per cent of families were aware of children getting married before the age of 18. Further details on child protection risks and geographic nuances can be found in the CP AoR Child Protection 2024-2025 Strategy.

Response

The CP AoR will target 2.2 million people with critical child protection services, including 1.4 million children and more than 762,000 adults who are providing direct care to children. High-risk areas and vulnerable groups, including unaccompanied and separated children, children with disabilities, and adolescent girls, are prioritized, whilst also recognizing adolescent boys are at increased risk of child labour and recruitment by armed forces. The CP AoR is targeting areas with a higher proportion of IDPs and non-displaced stateless people, while urban areas are deprioritized due to being reached through activities in the UN TCF.

CP AoR partners will apply a socioecological lens in line with child protection minimum standards. This includes: 1) providing coordinated, specialized child protection case management, including focused MHPSS, family tracing and reunification, and alternative care for individual children; 2) facilitating MHPSS activities for children and adolescents, including child friendly spaces and adolescent programming; 3) enhancing the family/caregiving environment via positive parenting support and MHPSS for caregivers; 4) strengthening community-level child protection through support for community members addressing harmful social norms, identifying risks and raising awareness including through explosive ordnance risk education, provision of psychosocial support, facilitating referrals, and developing risk mitigation plans; and 5) expanding availability of localized, culturally-relevant services.

The CP AoR will build on significant strides made in 2024 towards localization, with a well-established localization working group and localization analysis. Disability inclusive, gender responsive, and age-adapted programming are central to the response, and the CP AoR promotes child-friendly feedback and reporting mechanisms and adherence to child safeguarding standards.

GBV Protection Area of Responsibility

“For many displaced women like us, getting to safety can be really challenging. In times of conflict, the threat of gender-based violence often increases, making the need for protection feel even more urgent.”

– A young, displaced woman from Kachin.

GBV

GBV

GBV PiN and target

Needs

Gender-based violence in Myanmar primarily affects women and girls and is presumed to be driven by the ongoing conflict and displacement, poverty, food insecurity, high unemployment rates and job losses, and increased substance abuse. The 2024 MSNA and subnational consultations findings indicated that intimate partner violence, sexual violence (including conflict-related sexual violence) and forced/early marriages are the main GBV issues affecting women and girls in Myanmar. The consultation findings also showed an increase in negative coping mechanisms, such as transactional sex, to deal with economic shocks, such as income shortfalls.

The availability of multi-sectoral GBV response services for survivors, including case management and safe houses, remains insufficient. The provision of GBV response services under the low-profile approach makes it difficult in some cases for survivors to access timely services. Women lack access to legal recourse when having experienced GBV due to the failing justice system. Health-care services at the community-level, including clinical management of rape and MHPSS, remain a dire need in crisis-affected areas in Myanmar.

Response

In 2025, the GBV AoR aims to reach some 1.9 million people nationwide with GBV support. Eighty per cent of the people targeted for GBV response efforts will be women and girls given their greater exposure to GBV risks, and 20 per cent will be men and boys. An estimated 12 per cent of those targeted are persons with disabilities. People with diverse gender identities will also be targeted to mitigate and respond to the compounded protection risks they face.

Priority interventions for the GBV response will include case management, psychosocial support, legal aid, safe houses, women and girls' friendly spaces and effective referrals for survivors. Response approaches will utilize both static and mobile/remote service delivery methods, involving frontline services, cash assistance and in-kind support. GBV risk mitigation will include collaboration with all clusters to integrate GBV considerations into their programmes, conducting multisectoral safety audits, providing dignity kits, and offering cash assistance. GBV prevention interventions will target harmful social norms, attitudes and behaviours that condone and/or perpetuate violence against women and girls. GBV actors will also disseminate messages on the protection from sexual exploitation and abuse.

Gender-based Violence AoR Strategy for Myanmar:
https://reliefweb.int/report/myanmar/myanmar-gbv-sub-cluster-strategy-2024-2025

Gender-based Violence AoR at a glance:
https://reliefweb.int/node/4117980

MA Protection Area of Responsibility

“Mine risk messages saved the lives of my daughter and her friend.”

– A conflict-affected mother in Sagaing.

MA

Severity of needs

People in need and people targeted

Needs

The proliferation of landmines and explosive ordnance in Myanmar has reached a critical level, with incidents reported across all regions and states by quarter three of 2024. In the first nine months of the year, 889 casualties were recorded nationwide, representing 85 per cent of the total casualties reported in 2023, which stood at 1,052. Shan recorded the highest number of casualties in 2024, accounting for 25 per cent of the total, followed by Sagaing with 17 per cent and Rakhine with 12 per cent. Children under 18 constituted 28 per cent of the casualties, underscoring the disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations. In 2023, Myanmar also recorded the highest number of landmine and explosive ordnance casualties globally, ahead of Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine, highlighting the widespread and devastating impact of landmine contamination and the urgent need for increased mine action effort to address this escalating crisis. The growing presence of landmines in residential areas further exacerbates risks to civilians, indicating the critical and immediate need for targeted interventions.

Myanmar has not signed key international agreements, including the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. This lack of participation restricts humanitarian demining efforts, leaving the response almost exclusively reliant on explosive ordnance risk education to mitigate risk and provide victim assistance to those who have been injured.

Response

To promote safe behaviour among at-risk populations, explosive ordnance risk education will be provided directly in high-risk communities, through schools and community outreach events. A network of trained volunteers – including local leaders, teachers, and health workers – will support these efforts, receiving ongoing training and resources. Digital outreach, such as videos and social media campaigns, will help extend the programme’s reach. Training and resources will help local mine action organizations build their operational skills, supporting localisation and capacity development. Victim assistance efforts will provide essential support for explosive ordnance survivors and their families, facilitating access to medical care, psychological support, and physical rehabilitation, particularly in remote areas. Links to socio-economic programmes, including vocational training and employment opportunities, will promote survivors’ reintegration, through strengthened referral systems to ensure comprehensive support. Cash assistance will address diverse needs, improving the quality of life for survivors and their families, with progress tracked through increased access to healthcare, rehabilitation, and financial support. A targeted advocacy strategy will aim to curtail the use of landmines and support wider mine action activities. National and international campaigns will raise awareness, while engagement with policymakers will promote access to demining and encourage Myanmar’s ratification of key international conventions.

References

  1. Myanmar Landmine/ERW Incident Information 2024 (Q3), UNICEF Myanmar
  2. Landmine Monitor 2023