Ukraine

Protection response, including child protection (CP) and gender-based violence (GBV) responses, contributes to both Strategic Objectives and all four Strategic Priorities of the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan by safeguarding the rights, safety and dignity of war-affected populations and ensuring that the most vulnerable - children, women, older people, people with disabilities, and others at risk - can access inclusive, quality services. Protection partners will uphold a ‘do no harm’ approach, prevent and address sexual exploitation and abuse, strengthen child safeguarding and GBV risk mitigation, and ensure gender, age and disability inclusion across all interventions. Community-based approaches, strong referral pathways, revamped protection monitoring and tailored, service-oriented capacity-building of national actors (including refreshers necessitated by turnover and relocation) will underpin the response and strengthen its complementarity with protective state systems. 

Strategic Priority 1 – Frontline Response 

• In frontline and high-risk areas where state services are limited or inaccessible, partners prioritize life-saving, flexible and mobile protection services. Protection actors - including CP and GBV specialists - will deliver specialized case management, social support services (e.g. cash modalities, transportation support and referrals), and immediate psychosocial support for children and adults experiencing acute distress, as well as GBV survivors, including child survivors. Mobile PSS teams, remote support modalities, hotlines, and mobile Women and Girls Safe Spaces (WGSS) allow continuity of care in areas with volatile access. 
• Protection partners will support service providers, community-based organizations and volunteers providing assistance to the most vulnerable groups in frontline areas and provide life-saving information based on rights, explosive hazards and access to humanitarian and state services, in particular where these local capacities are limited due to security or overstretched. Child Protection partners will identify and support children facing violence and severe risks from shelling, displacement and the erosion of family care; they will also build the capacity on safe identification and referrals and child safeguarding to first responders in order to rapidly refer children to social services or specialized care. GBV actors will deploy mobile GBV teams to deliver emergency case management, safety planning, rapid referrals and dignity kits, or CVA through specialized care for GBV survivors. while also equipping other humanitarian actors to safely identify and mitigate GBV risks during frontline operations. Protection monitoring in these areas will ensure that emerging risks—such as exposure to GBV, including sexual violence, secondary displacement or premature returns, documentation loss (including house, land and property documents) or family separation - inform both operational and advocacy efforts.  

Strategic Priority 2 – Evacuations 

• Protection actors, including CP and GBV, will work jointly to ensure that humanitarian evacuations from frontline areas are safe, accessible and uphold family unity. Protection partners will complement authorities’ evacuation efforts by providing accessible and dignified transportation support, social accompaniment, psycho-social support en route, while ensuring that populations in frontline areas have access to multi-channel information on evacuation procedures. Child protection actors will focus on supporting child-safe evacuation procedures, prioritizing children with disabilities, children in alternative care, including institutions, and unaccompanied or separated children, providing MHPSS at assembly points, and strengthening systems to identify and assist “invisible” children unknown to authorities.  
• GBV actors will deploy to transit center and other reception points to deliver psychosocial support, safe referrals, in particular to GBV crisis interventions and accommodation, as well as Women and Girls Safe Spaces (WGSS) and time-sensitive health interventions in cases of sexual violence. They will also provide information on life-saving services and dignity kits or specialized CVA, while training transportation and reception personnel on assessment of GBV risks.  
• In receiving areas – inside and outside collective sites - protection partners will provide immediate counselling, legal assistance, case management and other forms of social support to stabilize the newly displaced and help them navigate administrative processes, including access to disability benefits, compensation for damaged and destroyed property and family-based alternative care for children at-risk. Protection partners will pay special attention to ensure that vulnerable IDPs who are displaced by their own means, including older people and people with disabilities, have access to protection and specialized services. 
• At transit centers and collective sites, protection partners will facilitate initial settlement of the newly displaced, ensure safe, dignified and accessible conditions and support site coordination and management, prioritizing those at highest risk.  

Strategic Priority 3 – Airstrike response 

• Following strikes, bombardments and other sudden-onset emergencies, protection teams will support multi-sector rapid response mechanisms, complementing the authorities’ response. Protection actors will help affected populations navigate psychological trauma due to exposure to violence, documentation loss and access to state benefits, including compensation for damaged and destroyed property. Protection monitoring and community-based approaches will feed real-time analysis and preparedness by operational partners to adjust responses to fast-changing risks. 
• Child protection actors will ensure that child-specific risks—trauma, separation, disappearance, exposure to violence, and inability to access immediate care—are systematically assessed and addressed. They will provide psychosocial first aid, stabilize affected children and caregivers, identify those in need of case management, and coordinate referrals to health, disability, legal and alternative care services. Additionally, specialized support will be provided to children and adolescent survivors of sexual violence and exploitation.  
• GBV actors deliver time-critical services such as emergency psychological support, provision of dignity kits or specialized crisis cash assistance as well as risk communication. Hotlines and digital platforms will function as primary access points when in-person services are disrupted. Rapid GBV assessments as well as GBV risk mitigation measures will be taken on site. For the follow-up GBV actors will refer those who are in need of GBV case management, static psychosocial support to GBV survivors and those at-risk, GBV crisis interventions and accommodation (GBV shelters, crisis rooms and day care services). Rapid GBV assessments as well as GBV risk mitigation measures will be taken on site. For the follow-up, GBV actors will refer those who in need to GBV case management, static psychosocial support to GBV survivors and those at-risk, GBV crisis interventions and accommodation (GBV shelters, crisis rooms and day care services). 

Strategic Priority 4 – Centrality of Protection support to vulnerable IDPs  

• For IDPs in prolonged displacement with complex vulnerability and risk profiles, protection services will focus on continuity of care and overcoming individual barriers to state services—social protection, health, education, legal aid, child protection and GBV services, and age- and disability-inclusive support. By providing these time-bound, needs-based interventions, partners will prevent the aggravation of protection risks such as secondary displacement, premature returns to unsafe areas, institutionalization, negative coping mechanisms and further harm, and exacerbation of unmet needs.  
• Child Protection actors will deliver ongoing case management, structured and unstructured MHPSS, support for family-based alternative care, family tracing, reunification and reintegration, rehabilitation support, and restoration of documentation to help children reintegrate into education and community life.  
• GBV partners will strengthen static and community-based services—including GBV case management, psychosocial support, provision of dignity kits or specialized crisis cash assistance at WGSS, safe shelters and crisis rooms—and reinforce referral pathways. They also build municipal and regional capacity to ensure localized and sustainable GBV services. Remote modalities such as hotlines and tele-PSS complement static services will be used to reach women, including older women and women with disabilities, children and other at-risk groups. GBV assessments and training on GBV risk mitigation will be conducted on sites. 
• Across collective sites, protection partners will continue their support to site coordination and management and dignified, voluntary, and informed transitions from collective sites. All actors will adopt flexible modality according to the needs and contexts, including static, mobile and remote.