Nepal Earthquake: UNICEF Responds for Children

One year after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake devastated Nepal, children continue to face major difficulties. Alongside concerns over living conditions and access to a safe and supportive education, children report enduring feelings of fear and trauma that could compromise their wellbeing in the long term.

Five child rights organisations– Plan International, Save the Children, Terre des hommes, UNICEF, and World Vision – highlight the need to mainstream child protection and child safeguarding, including psycho-social support, within all recovery and reconstruction efforts.

The findings are based on a consultation with more than 680 children from five of the most severely earthquake-affected districts in Nepal. The research released today, “Children’s voices, children’s rights: one year after the Nepal earthquake” revealed that children’s challenges continue to be inadequate shelter, overcrowded classes, and lack of books and materials.

Children who took part in the consultation highlighted different sources of fear as a result of living in temporary shelters, including thieves and wild animals entering houses; of sleeping outside; and of being trafficked or forced into child labour.

"The doors and windows of our temporary house are not strong. The locks can be easily broken and I am scared of being [physically or sexually] abused. I have heard news of this kind through the radio," said one adolescent girl from Rasuwa, during the consultations.

Most worryingly, these compounding fears and feelings of instability are starting to have psychosocial effects on children. A staggering 50 percent of children stated that a year after the earthquake, they continue to overreact to loud noises and 23 percent do not sleep as well as before the earthquake.

“We feel scared even while dreaming. Also, we get scared hearing the sound of vehicles,” said an adolescent boy from Salmechakal, Kavre.

Save the Children’s Country Director, Delilah Borja, said: “Children are undoubtedly the most vulnerable during an emergency. It was no different when multiple quakes struck Nepal last year. Children’s lives were shaken beyond their comprehension, education came to a standstill and their overall wellbeing was under threat."

Girls and boys described the ongoing fear of another earthquake, potentially triggering further landslides, and the possibility of it occurring while they were on their way to, or at school.

“Time alone will not remove the children's fear. We need to make children feel safe again and find a positive way for them to live with their memories of destruction, insecurity and loss. Parents and teachers need to learn how to support traumatised children to help them regaining confidence for their future”, states Sebastian Zug, Country Representative of Terre des hommes in Nepal.

Despite emergency response efforts building 3,567 temporary learning centres - which enable children to return to school - more than one year after the earthquakes 30 per cent of children continue to report studying in unsafe schools, many complaining of cramped and noisy classrooms. More than 60 per cent prioritised the construction of earthquake-resistant schools as their top concern.

UNICEF Representative Tomoo Hozumi said: "The situation could have been far worse if the earthquake occurred on any other day than Saturday when schools in the country are closed. The geophysical conditions of Nepal mean there are no 'safe zones' when it comes to major earthquakes. We believe making schools earthquake-resistant through retrofitting or new construction is one of the up-most priorities not only in the earthquake-affected districts but in the entire country."

Children who took part in the consultation expressed desire to be consulted in further recovery discussions. Seventy per cent of children stated their voices had not been listened to during the response, and about 95 percent stated that they wanted to be consulted through discussions at the community and local level, child-clubs, at school, through their parents or directly through organisations.

Plan International Nepal’s Country Director Mattias Bryneson said: “All children have the right to grow up in a safe and protective environment. We hope the concerns of the children affected by this tragedy will be better taken care of in the recovery and reconstruction phase of the earthquake response."

Despite the huge challenges faced by aid agencies to reach all of the earthquake survivors, the large majority of children - 98 percent - reported to have received support in the months following the earthquake, by way of food items, cash, shelter, temporary shelter materials, mobile health camps and support for school items.

World Vision’s Nepal Earthquake Response Director, Jennifer MacCann said, “Moving forward, in the coming months we are hopeful to focus on recovery work that will benefit children and restore their sense of safety and normalcy in their schools, homes and communities.”

• One Year Report - Nepal (PDF)
  

The humanitarian situation has improved over the past months, hundreds of thousands of children still need shelter, food, access to water and sanitation, medical care, education and protection.

"When a major disaster strikes like the earthquakes on 25 April and 12 May, it incurs not only loss of lives but also destruction of assets, sources of livelihoods and substantially reduces household income particularly among the most vulnerable population," said Tomoo Hozumi, UNICEF Representative in Nepal.

"We know that when going through difficult times, poor households often resort to harmful coping strategies, such as reducing their food consumption, cutting down their health and education expenditure, and sending their children to work – all of which can have irreversible negative consequences on them and more so on their children," Hozumi said.

"The top-up cash provided will help vulnerable households to at least meet some of their basic needs such as food and medicine without further resorting to harmful coping strategies during these lean times." 

To help address the immediate needs of children and their families affected by the quakes, UNICEF is providing $15 million worth of direct cash transfers to approximately 330,000 households, including an estimated 450,000 children, in 19 districts most affected by the earthquakes. This support, channeled through existing government social assistance programmes, is reaching vulnerable individuals including Dalit children, people with disabilities, widows, the elderly and marginalised ethnic groups.

”The earthquake has exposed the fragility of Nepal’s progress in terms of poverty reduction,” continued Hozumi. “Looking beyond immediate relief, one of the priorities for UNICEF is to assist the government to phase in a reliable and predictable form of income support for children and their families. Strengthening and expanding the country’s social protection system and improving its responsiveness to shocks will contribute to children's well-being and development during normal times and increase their families’ ability to cope in case of future disasters.” 

Since April, UNICEF has also been providing a wide range of services to the children and families living in the areas worst hit by the earthquakes including:

• Procuring 1,000 metric tonnes of essential supplies including tents, hygiene kits, therapeutic foods, vaccinations and other life-saving medicines, medical kits, bed nets, newborn packages, and school-in-a-box and early childhood development kits.
• Helping over 100,000 children to continue their education in UNICEF-supported temporary learning centres. 
• Supplying clean water to over 650,000 people in homes and camp settings. 
• Restoring birthing centres in more than 150 health facilities. Helping intercept 513 children and women from being trafficked or illegally moved out of the country.P
• Providing nearly 30,000 children with psychosocial support to help them recover from their experiences.

“Together with the Government and partners, we have been able to achieve a lot in the past 90 days.  At the same time, given the enormity of the damages and losses, and the possible impact of the monsoons, there is a lot more to be done to bring a sense of normalcy to the lives of the earthquake survivors especially the most vulnerable amongst them," said Hozumi.

Links:

• UNICEF Press Release on Nepal Cash Transfer