National Consultant to support strengthening of protection services for women and children in Tanah Papua (Remotely with occasional travel) , 8 months. Req#593620

Contract Duration- 8 Months

Working arrangement: Home-based

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TERMS OF REFERENCE

UNICEF is seeking to recruit a national consultant to provide technical support for the implementation of key child protection programme activities aimed at strengthening the quality of sustainable, integrated protection services, including birth registration for children in Tanah Papua, Indonesia.

Background:

Children across the six Papua provinces continue to face multiple and intersecting protection risks, including violence, neglect, harmful practices, low birth registration coverage and limited access to essential services. While there has been progress in strengthening the child protection policy framework at national level, challenges remain in translating these into effective and functioning systems at subnational levels, particularly in Papuan provinces.

Available data and recent coordination processes indicate that protection risks are widespread across Papua, although their severity and manifestation vary between provinces and districts. High levels of violence against children continue to be reported, where between 2021 and 2025, a total of 1,336 cases of violence against children were reported in Tanah Papua, involving 1,513 survivors—with sexual violence being the most prevalent. Many cases involve perpetrators within the child’s immediate environment, underscoring systemic vulnerabilities within families and communities.

At the same time, child marriage remains a significant concern, with several Papua provinces recording rates well above the national average. South Papua reported the highest prevalence in 2025 at 12.94 per cent, nearly three times the national rate (4.56 per cent), following an already elevated level of 14.40 per cent in 2024 (with national average: 5.90 per cent). During the same period, Southwest Papua experienced the sharpest increase, rising by 3.79 percentage points from 2.7 per cent to 6.49 per cent (BPS, 2025). Similar upward patterns are also observed in other provinces in Papua. This trend highlights persistent and increasing risks, underscoring the need for strengthened analysis and dedicated technical support to inform timely and effective child protection responses.

In addition, gaps in birth registration remain a critical issue in parts of Papua, with a significant proportion of children aged 0–4 years lacking legal identity. On average, birth registration coverage across Tanah Papua is around 58.8 per cent, with wide disparities across provinces, indicating that a significant proportion of children still lack legal identity, impacting their access to essential services such as health care, education, and social protection, and increasing children’s exposure to exploitation and other risks.

Despite ongoing efforts by government, communities, and partners, child protection responses are still largely fragmented. Across Papua provinces, common challenges include limited coordination across sectors, gaps in local planning and budgeting, weak referral systems, and underutilized data. Strengthening how these elements work together remains critical to ensuring more effective prevention and response to violence against children and harmful practices.

UNICEF’s child protection programme in Indonesia prioritizes strengthening systems to ensure that children are protected from violence and harmful practices and have access to quality prevention and response services. In Tanah Papua, this requires continued engagement with provincial and district governments to support the operationalization of policies into practice, while ensuring that approaches are adapted to local contexts.

Scope of Work:

1. Provide technical support to monitor implementation of recommendations from the integrated services assessment in 2025, including the roll-out and application of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for integrated child protection services and Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA), in line with national standards.
2. Support strengthening protection services for women and children (UPTDPPA and other services), taking into account the recommendations of the 2025 Assessment of the integrated services in Papua Provinces, including capacity building of the social service workforce.
3. Strengthening coordination mechanisms, referral pathways, and community-based prevention approaches, linking community structures (e.g. PATBM, PUSPAGA, PKK, faith-based and customary actors) with UPTD PPA and essential services to address violence against children and child marriage.
4. Provide technical support in achieving the RPJMN target on birth registration, including through improving the integration of birth registration with health and other frontline services.
5. Provide technical support to subnational governments to strengthen policy, planning, programming, and budgeting processes related to the child protection system, including prevention of child marriage.
6. Support the development of strategies for programme sustainability and scale-up, including documentation of lessons learned and practical recommendations for replication across

If you would like to know more about this consultancy, please review the complete Terms of Reference here: Terms of Reference TMC0002942.pdf

Minimum requirements:

• Education:

Bachelor’s degree on social work, psychology, or related field

• Work Experience:

▪ At least 5 years of working experience in service delivery relevant to social welfare, child protection or related field. Practical experience on child protection case management is an asset.

▪ Experience in UNICEF’s children rights and protection, women and girls’ empowerment, gender, disability and social inclusion’s concept is an advantage.

• Skills:

▪ Extensive technical and practical expertise on capacity building including module development and training facilitation; good communication skill.
▪ Demonstrated understanding of government functions to social work reform and child protection and relevant legal framework.
▪ Demonstrated understanding of Papua context in program and regulations related to child protection and have experiences working in Papua Provinces
▪ Knowledge on monitoring and evaluation including information management system for child protection
▪ Ability to provide guidance and training to enhance the capacity of government staff
▪ Strong analytical and writing skills in English and Bahasa

• Language Requirements:

Fluency in English (advance in writing) is required

• Desirables :

Relevant experience in child protection and related areas,
program/project development and management in a UN
system agency / UNICEF is an asset

For every Child, you demonstrate...

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Qualified candidates are invited to submit the following documents via the online recruitment portal, TMS (Talent Management System):

• An up-to-date TMS profile and curriculum vitae (CV)
• Cover letter
• A separate financial proposal (only acceptable in the format of the linked template) Financial proposal TMC0002942.docx)

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