Global Protection Update: Protection in a Prioritised Humanitarian Response, October 2025

As of October 2025, Protection Clusters estimate that 395 million people across 23 countries are exposed to protection risks. These risks include direct threats to life from violence, coercion, and deliberate deprivation. Across operations, the main protection risks reported are attacks on civilians, abductions and movement restrictions, alongside gender-based violence, denial of services, lack of legal identity, and psychosocial distress. The convergence of these risks, coupled with the erosion of protective environments, has created an unprecedented global protection crisis, challenging both humanitarian response and political accountability.

Countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Myanmar, the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt - Gaza & West Bank), Sudan, and Ukraine face the most extreme situations, where populations experience overlapping patterns of violence, exclusion, and deprivation. Since January 2025, conflict dynamics have intensified as a major driver of protection risks. In Gaza, the humanitarian crisis deepened, culminating in a famine declaration, while in the DRC, violence escalated across North and South Kivu, displacing over a million people in just weeks, adding to nearly 6.4 million IDPs. Sudan continues to face severe threats, particularly in El Fasher and the Zamzam IDP camp, where civilians are exposed to ongoing attacks, siege and displacement. Rising violence in Mozambique (Cabo Delgado), Haiti, and Colombia (Catatumbo) has further exacerbated vulnerabilities, while fragile institutions and economic collapse compound risks in protracted and forgotten crises in Cameroon, Chad, and the Sahel.

Climate shocks exacerbate the effects of protection risks on people’s life and continue to aggravate protection needs, with earthquakes in Myanmar and Afghanistan displacing communities and heightening vulnerability, and floods in Nigeria and Venezuela disrupting access to essential services. Displacement, family separation, and loss of property are widespread, leaving communities highly exposed to harm. The situational analysis, presented in this report, conducted at sub-national level is essential to identify specific geographic areas where violence, coercion and deliberate deprivation are not only acute and harmful but also at high risk of further escalation. Prioritizing these hotspots is critical to prevent further deterioration, curb the emergence of new protection risks, and respond to the compounding humanitarian needs they generate.

While most humanitarian crises are fundamentally protection crises, driven by violations of international law and patterns of abuse and violence, the current humanitarian response is constrained by increasing funding restrictions and access limitations, driving to significant service gaps and limited capacity to meet urgent needs across sectors. Protection operations have been severely disrupted, with the scaling back or suspension of critical protection services, community-led interventions and early-warning/prevention mechanisms.

In June 2025, OCHA launched a hyper-prioritized humanitarian response plan to address the most urgent, life-saving needs in acute crises. Thanks to robust advocacy at country and global level, protection was integrated into these hyper-prioritized response plans, alongside the delivery of life-saving assistance. Through this process, the Protection Cluster identified 24.7 million people as most urgently in need of assistance and protection. Yet, this represents just 14,7% of the 168 million people in need of protection globally – leaving 143,3 million people unassisted. Meeting the prioritized protection needs alone requires US $1,2 billion. As of 31 August 2025, however, the Protection Cluster is only funded at 23% out of the initial US $3.2 billion requested, leaving a severe funding gap at a time of escalating risks and needs.

In this context, it is essential to position protection as a central pillar of humanitarian action, ensuring that violations are addressed, risks are mitigated, and life-saving assistance is delivered in ways that preserve the safety and dignity of affected populations