Study Introduction
The objectives were to:
identify the difficulties that children face during
floods
identify the assistance children need in order to
cope with the floods
outline whether and how the current disaster
responses meet childrens special protection
needs during floods
identify ways of improving the emergency
response plans in order to meet childrens
protection needs during floods
1.3 Methodology
The methodology consisted of:
Desk review of relevant laws and guidelines,
policies, plans, proposals and reports of
emergency responses of humanitarian actors
operating in Bangladesh.
Consultation with disaster mitigation actors at
the local and central levels.
Extensive consultation with over one thousand
children and concerned adult stakeholders in
different flood prone areas, in the form of focus
group discussions and individual case studies.
Input from a Steering Committee comprising
focal emergency staff from Plan, UNICEF, Save
the Children-USA, Save the Children-Aus, Save
the Children-SD and Save the Children-UK. It is
hoped that the formation of this committee has
helped to forge stronger links between these
child-centred organisations, providing a firm
base for future shared work, cooperation and
communication, especially during disasters.
1.4 Scope and limitations
Natural disasters in Bangladesh: At a meeting
between many disaster response actors in
2 be cross-cutting and which affected specific
Bangladesh on 06 July 2004 , it was suggested that
studies should be carried out to identify specific
child protection needs during all types of recurring
natural disasters in Bangladesh, such as cyclones,
cold waves, earthquakes etc. This study can be seen
as the first contribution, focusing on floods in
Bangladesh. The research has taken place in areas
that experience different types of flooding
recurrently:
slow onset urban floods
rural flash floods
rural slow onset floods
(Coastal floods have not been included in the scope
of the study.)
Interviewees: This study builds on the significant
experience and expertise of many actors involved
in flood responses in Bangladesh. There have been
many valuable consultations with children and
other stakeholders regarding the problems faced
during floods. This study has sought to take this
learning further by providing the unique
opportunity to consult with over one thousand
stakeholders specifically on the issue of child
protection during floods. The majority of people
consulted were under the age of 18, but parents,
care-givers and other relevant adult stakeholders,
such as, the community leaders and civil society
members were also consulted. This number of
people has not been consulted before on this topic
in Bangladesh.
In order to improve protection for children in
emergencies, it is important to [] elicit the
active and meaningful participation of children
themselves in all programmes. This helps to
ensure that interventions do not cause further
harm or make children more vulnerable, and that
they meet the specific needs of different groups,
3
covering protection gaps as best as possible.
Children were interviewed in groups differentiated
by age, sex and background. This is important
because children are likely to feel more comfortable
talking about difficult issues with other children
who have shared similar experiences. For example,
young girls who have been sexually harassed in
flood shelters may not feel comfortable discussing
this in the present of teenage boys. Interviewing
children in differentiated groups helped us
understand which child protection issues tended to
groups of children. Special effort was made to
consult with children from marginalised groups,
such as street children and orphans. Admittedly,
this can be a rather crude way of grouping children;
people always have multifaceted identities and it
may prove to be useless to group them into
simplistic categories. However, in terms of this
study, it was felt that the children in these groups
were living in particular areas and in particular
circumstances which would have direct bearing on
the types of problems that they face during floods.