Breakdown of target and requirements by Area of Responsibility (AoR)
General protection
Child protection
GBV
HLP
Mine action
Summary of needs
About 14.7 million Syrians are estimated to be in need of protection services across Syria. Protection needs stem from the effects of years of conflict as well as more recent sudden onset shocks including natural disasters. While government-led recovery efforts are increasingly in place, capacities to address them remain limited. About 5.542 million IDPs remain in Syria, with concentrations in the northeast and northwest, including in camps and in camp-like situations. Return movements are increasing, and national mechanisms enabling returns - including from camps - are being established. Return movements are placing pressures on returnee and host communities, while vulnerable returnees face lack of shelter, damaged or destroyed housing, lack of livelihoods and lack or limited access to protection and basic services in areas of return. Protracted displacement for those who cannot return due to specific protection needs or vulnerability, is becoming semi-permanent, increasing risks of dependency, social tension, and secondary displacement. This requires protection-sensitive returns and reintegration support whilst ensuring continued support to those who cannot return. Other areas remain at risk of localised conflict or face heightened levels of insecurity and crime.
Meanwhile, EO contamination remains one of the most serious nationwide safety threats for civilians. Between December 2024 and December 2025 alone, 909 EO incidents caused 1,667 civilian casualties (606 killed; 1,061 injured). Over 14.3million Syrians are estimated to be at risk, with urgent need for scale-up of mine action interventions, including survey and clearance.
The presence of trauma and emotional distress amongst affected populations are reported in nearly half of communities. Protection monitoring consistently highlights grief, depression, trauma linked to violence, injury and loss, missing family members, and fear driven by insecurity and instability. Women‑headed households and children‑headed households are most affected, with distress influencing household dynamics, increasing exposure to exploitation, and inhibiting help‑seeking behaviours. Freedom of movement restrictions persist, compounded by lack of civil documentation, explosive ordnance contamination and intermittent crossing closures. Protection monitoring shows that nearly 30 per cent of communities’ report movement constraints, shaped by transport costs, lack of options, safety concerns (including EO hazards), documentation challenges, and disability‑related barriers. These constraints critically affect women‑headed households, persons with disabilities, and IDP and returnee families attempting to access services or reunite with relatives.
Administrative and legal barriers to accessing civil documentation and HLP rights remain among the most pervasive structural risks. Assessment shows that people in many communities experience difficulties obtaining or renewing civil and HLP documentation, and there are high reports of children being born without birth certificates, including generations of returnees from neighbouring countries who have never been registered. Drivers include lack of information on procedures, costs, absence of documentation, lack of availability of civil registries and cadastral offices, and insufficient legal aid, exacerbated by distance and insecurity. Consequences are severe: denial of assistance and services, inability to register life events, mobility restrictions, and increased risk of statelessness. These barriers disproportionately affect returnees, who often arrive with expired, missing, or non‑recognised documents, and IDPs in camps, who regularly face administrative obstacles and limited access to civil registries.
GBV is widespread and consistently reported across all regions with physical violence and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) identified as the most pervasive. GBV risks’ assessments show 8.6 million people require GBV assistance, 85 per cent of whom are women and girls. IPV, psychological violence, economic violence, early/forced marriage, and sexual exploitation often driven by economic hardship and limited risk mitigation measures are persistent concerns, with adolescent girls facing heightened risk. Women and girls facing displacement, return, widowhood, or separation, persons with disabilities and those without documentation, experience compounded vulnerabilities. Barriers such as fear of identification, distance to services, lack of confidentiality, and limited availability of trained female staff restrict timely access to lifesaving GBV services.
Children face multiple protection risks, such as violence, exploitation and neglect within the household, worst forms of child labour, child marriage, psychosocial distress, family separation, and recruitment/association with armed actors, with a growing number of children with disabilities. National figures show 6.2 million children require child protection services, with rising hazardous child labour and high school dropout linked to economic pressures increasing susceptibility to exploitation and early marriage. Children in IDP camps and return areas face particularly severe risks due to overcrowding, lack of services, disrupted schooling, limited civil documentation, and exposure to EO contamination.
Risks related to HLP issues are widely reported, driven by widespread housing destruction, lack of compensation or rehabilitation, lost or non‑recognised ownership documents, and inheritance disputes. Over 4.1million Syrians are estimated as in need of HLP support, including returnees. Returnees frequently encounter secondary occupations, damaged property, or informal transactions made during their absence. For many, the lack of civil and/or HLP documentation or functional legal pathways creates a direct barrier to safe, dignified, and sustainable return. Women face entrenched obstacles to exercising HLP rights due to discriminatory social norms and limited access to legal remedies.
The above-mentioned protection risks are further compounded by high levels of EO contamination that litter agricultural lands, destroyed housing and infrastructure, restricting freedom of movement, livelihoods, access to services, and safe returns even in areas where active conflict has subsided. 2025 has seen the number of EO casualties triple compared to previous years, with the latest protection monitoring also showing more than 30 per cent of Key Informants reported EO contamination within 10km of their community, and 80.9 per cent of those areas also reported EO-related incidents affecting civilians, particularly children and women‑headed households.
Cross-cutting vulnerabilities are also consistent across thematic areas: women-headed households, children (including adolescents), older persons/caregivers, persons with disabilities, returnees, and households experiencing repeated displacement are repeatedly identified through protection monitoring and needs assessment as the most affected and in need.
Response strategy
Protection risk analysis, monitoring, and evidence-based response
In 2026, the Protection Sector will prioritise a protection risk analysis and evidence‑based approach through protection monitoring, including CP Situation Monitoring, eviction tracking, and GBV risks monitoring, ensuring systematic disability, gender and age data disaggregation to address urgent needs of IDPs, returnees and other vulnerable persons including people with disability, victims of trafficking and abuse, elderly and women/child head of household are prioritised while strengthening community self‑protection, sustainable reintegration, and durable solutions.
Protection-focused returns and reintegration support
Return trends are placing growing pressure on areas already affected by damaged infrastructure, HLP disputes, EO contamination, and limited basic services raising risks of harm, secondary displacement, and re‑exposure to protection threats. This requires protection‑focused support to safeguard returns and reduce community tensions. The sector will promote safe, inclusive, dignified, voluntary, and informed returns through area‑based approaches and by strengthening community-based approaches linking protection with livelihoods, basic services, and social cohesion. In return areas, interventions will include dedicated EORE and survey and clearance efforts to minimise risks from death and injury from EO hazards. At the same time, actors will sequence safe referrals with access to health, education, and shelter/NFI support, cash for protection outcomes, PSS, legal and HLP assistance, and applying conflict‑sensitive approaches to address assistance equity and prevent tensions. At the same time, continuity of specialised protection services for people unable or unwilling to return (including in camps and informal sites) as well as readiness to respond to new displacements or shocks will remain essential.
Individual protection assistance, case management and GBV and Child Protection service expansion in high-severity areas
The sector will strengthen individual protection assistance, case management, PSS, and specialised GBV and child protection services including case management, clinical care for rape, women and girls’ Safe Spaces, GBV shelters, and adolescent‑responsive services ensuring strong confidentiality safeguards and accessibility. This expansion will prioritise high‑severity areas and known protection hotspots, integrating mobile teams where movement restrictions and transport costs constrain access. These efforts will specifically target high‑risk groups, including women and girls, children, survivors of gender-based violence, persons with disabilities, families of missing persons, ex‑detainees, victims of trafficking, IDPs, and returnees with compounded vulnerabilities. GBV risks exacerbated by economic hardship, IPV prevalence, and limited availability of confidential, survivor‑centered services require strengthened risk mitigation, enhanced case management, safe referrals, and GBV‑sensitive community outreach, particularly in locations where fear of identification, distance, and the absence of female staff remain major barriers. For children, rising exposure to hazardous labour, EO contamination, family separation, psychosocial distress, and recruitment risk necessitates reinforced child‑sensitive case management and PSS support, especially for those in IDP camps, where overcrowding, instability, and limited-service availability heighten vulnerabilities.
HLP and legal identity barriers
Addressing HLP and legal identity barriers will be another foundational priority. To reduce access barriers to legal identity and HLP and support target groups including returnees to access and exercise their rights, the Sector will strengthen documentation support, and dispute resolution mechanisms including legal information, awareness raising, counselling and assistance for civil documentation (birth, marriage, and death registration, renewals, and document retrieval or replacement), as well as HLP counselling, legal assistance, dispute resolution, capacity building and due diligence support tailored for women, child headed households, persons with disabilities and returnees. Attention will be given to preventing and reducing risks of statelessness and supporting returnees to regularise their civil and property status in high-return areas. The response will strengthen the capacities of cadastre and local administrative bodies to verify claims, manage HLP records, and support transparent, protection‑sensitive tenure processes. This will include promoting safeguards against discrimination, secondary occupation and unlawful property seizure, in line with international protection standards. It will also invest in training humanitarian actors, legal aid providers, community structures, and frontline responders on HLP rights, due diligence, and conflict‑sensitive dispute resolution. All interventions will integrate a ‘do no harm’ approach and ensure safe referral pathways for individuals at heightened protection risk. Together, these measures aim to reduce HLP barriers, improve tenure clarity, and support safer, more predictable return and recovery prospects for affected communities.
EO mitigation and survivor assistance
Mitigating EO risks and supporting survivors are a key priority given the scale of EO contamination with 909 civilian casualties recorded between December 2024 and December 2025. Mine Action actors will play a central role in reducing harm through non-technical survey, EO disposal and clearance, inclusive risk education integrated with critical services such as education, agriculture, and cash/livelihoods, and sensitive community engagement, while facilitating referrals to survey and clearance actors where feasible. In parallel, comprehensive EO survivor support and interventions will focus on strengthening referral systems, expanding access to rehabilitation services including trauma care, prosthetics/orthotics, physical rehabilitation, PSS, and inclusive livelihoods remain critical in high severity areas. Mine action constitutes a prerequisite for safe returns, agricultural recovery, infrastructure rehabilitation, and area-based programming. Strengthening national leadership through the National Mine Action Centre is a strategic objective, that the Centre remains in its inception phase and requires sustained technical support to ensure standards compliance, operational safety, and accountability.
Community-based protection
The Sector will also seek to strengthen community‑based and community-driven protection and social cohesion efforts, recognising that protection risks are increasingly shaped by disputes over land, resource scarcity, discrimination, and strained relations between returnees, residual IDPs, and host communities, and best addressed sustainably by enhancing communities’ self-protection capacities. Engaging and supporting local protection and self-management networks and initiatives, women’s groups, older people’s Associations and organisations of persons with disabilities and youth will support early warning, prevention, and mediation efforts, helping to reduce violence, foster trust, and sustain protection outcomes. This approach will promote inclusive participation and accountability to affected populations and strengthen referral pathways to specialised services.
Government institutional capacity development for protection outcomes
In 2026, the Protection Sector will advance a structured, protection outcome-oriented approach to institutional capacity development, aligned with nationally led recovery efforts and the authorities stated priorities to address the needs of displaced and vulnerable Syrians. The sector will support inclusive, accountable, and protection-sensitive systems strengthening that enhances national capacities while upholding humanitarian principles and safeguards.
The sector will promote a medium- to long-term, layered capacity development framework integrating technical support, humanitarian standards, and systematic institutional assessments within a coherent and coordinated strategy. Priority will be given to support that directly enhances protection service delivery, access to rights, and equitable assistance for affected populations.
In close coordination with government counterparts, the sector will seek to reinforce constructive partnership, support ongoing national efforts, and promote inclusive implementation that ensures vulnerable groups are reached and supported through this transition.
Flexible delivery modalities with expanded mobile coverage
The Protection sector will continue to operate through a network of static and mobile facilities embedding specialised staff as well as community volunteers. Response modalities will remain flexible and adaptable to evolving needs and local contexts, but particular emphasis will be placed on expanding mobile approaches to enhance coverage hardto- reach, including returnee areas with enhanced risk profiles.
Targeting and prioritisation
Out of the 7.5 million people targeted, the Sector will prioritise 3.6 million IDPs, returnees‑at‑risk, and conflict‑affected populations in high‑severity and underserved locations, including areas experiencing returnee pressures, areas affected by inter‑community tensions and localised conflict dynamics, last‑resort sites such as camps and IDP‑hosting locations, and areas where safe and dignified return to places of origin including from abroad requires targeted protection support. Life-saving activities will be prioritised, including timely, survivor-centred-GBV/CP services through mobile/static modalities reducing violence, harmful coping, and acute distress; legal aid to support legal identity and HLP solutions so families can access assistance, services, and secure tenure cornerstones for safe return and recovery; EO risk education, survey/clearance, and survivor support to reduce EO casualties and promote safer livelihoods; provide protection-sensitive return support combining cash for protection, PSS, legal/HLP aid, and community cohesion activities to reduce tensions and prevent secondary displacement.