Protection of Civilians Week 2026: Strengthening Protection of Civilians in Conflict

Protection is at the heart of the Danish Refugee Council’s (DRC) mandate, which centers around responding to violence, coercion, and deliberate deprivation that threatens the lives and dignity of affected people. DRC firmly believes that protection must remain central to all humanitarian action, in line with the system-wide IASC commitment on the centrality of protection. Protection risks drive displacement and other humanitarian needs, and the absence of robust protection interventions in humanitarian crises has had devastating consequences, including protracted forced displacement, family separation, gender-based violence, and repeated violations of International Humanitarian Law. As humanitarian funding levels decrease globally and respect for international norms is increasingly undermined, ensuring strong and substantive support for protection must remain a top priority. 

In this brief, DRC focuses on key protection risks in Lebanon, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo and proposes global and context-specific recommendations to Member States to strengthen protection of civilians, including actionable steps to reverse the erosion of international law and the impunity enjoyed by its worst violators. Most data cited in this brief stem from regular DRC Protection Monitoring and Victim Assistance reports, as well as DRC’s Global Displacement Forecast, which are hyperlinked throughout and can be shared upon request.  

Over the past year, in the four protection crises highlighted in this brief, DRC has observed a severe escalation of protection risks for civilians in conflict. While access constraints, funding gaps, and lack of duty-bearer capacity all contribute to these risks, underlying them all is a persistent erosion of respect for and compliance with International Humanitarian Law (IHL), disarmament treaties, and normative frameworks protecting civilians in conflict, alongside limited accountability for serious violations.