HIAS is the global Jewish nonprofit organization that protects refugees—including women and children, and ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities—whose lives are in danger for being who they are.

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Protection Associate

Job Type

Full Time

Qualification

BA/BSc/HND

Experience

1 - 2 years

Location

Nairobi

Job Field

Law / Legal

POSITION SUMMARY:

HIAS Kenya seeks a Protection Associate to provide comprehensive protection services to vulnerable refugee populations. This role supports HIAS’s protection programs through assessments, case management, referrals, and follow-up to ensure timely and appropriate services for clients in need. The position strengthens HIAS’s overall protection response by promoting and protecting the rights of the most vulnerable refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced persons.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

Provide legal protection services using a protection case management approach, ensuring client-centered, rights-based, and survivor-informed legal assistance for refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced persons.

Conduct legal-focused protection assessments as part of case intake to identify legal risks, documentation gaps, detention concerns, custody issues, and access-to-justice barriers.

Open, manage, and follow up legal protection cases in accordance with HIAS Protection Case Management SOPs, ensuring clear case objectives, informed consent, confidentiality, and safe information sharing.

Develop legal case plans in collaboration with clients, outlining legal actions, referral needs, timelines, responsible actors, and risk mitigation measures, and regularly review progress.

Provide legal counseling, information, and representation (where applicable), including:

• Child custody and child protection–related legal matters
• Legal support for survivors of violence against women, girls, men, and boys
• Civil documentation, asylum procedures, and arrest or detention-related cases

Ensure regular client follow-up on legal cases, providing timely feedback on case status, court processes, referrals, and outcomes, and adjusting case plans as circumstances evolve.

Facilitate safe and confidential referrals between legal services and other protection subsectors, ensuring continuity of care and coordinated response.

Provide legal services through Huduma Mtaani and other outreach/service delivery points, integrating legal screening into broader protection case identification and tracking.

Conduct border and detention monitoring, documenting legal protection risks, and initiating individual or group case management interventions where rights violations are identified.

Maintain accurate legal case documentation and case notes within the data management system, ensuring compliance with data protection and ethical standards.

Provide technical guidance and supervision to protection monitors, ensuring they identify, refer, and document legal protection cases correctly using standardized tools.

Review, analyze, and validate protection monitoring reports to identify emerging legal protection trends and translate findings into case referrals, advocacy priorities, and program adjustments.

Develop legal protection training curricula and deliver capacity-building sessions for protection monitors, community structures, and partners on legal rights, referral pathways, and case management principles.

Participate in inter-agency legal and protection coordination forums, contributing case-level insights to inform advocacy, system strengthening, and policy engagement.

Contribute to legal protection and advocacy reporting, using aggregated case data and trends to support efforts aimed at improving the legal and operational environment for refugees and asylum seekers.

Support community-based legal protection interventions, strengthening community awareness, early identification, and referral of legal protection cases.

Assist in resource mobilization efforts by providing technical inputs, case statistics, and impact narratives drawn from legal case management outcomes.

Assist in protection mainstreaming by providing insight into protection interventions for vulnerable refugees

Facilitate stakeholder training on refugee protection.

Reporting

Prepare accurate weekly and monthly activity reports highlighting protection trends, challenges, and service gaps.

Monitor legal protection trends through data analysis and prepare summaries for presentation in psychosocial panels.

Produce monthly analyses on emerging protection issues to inform programming, referrals, and community awareness activities.

QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS:

Bachelor's degree in law and an advocate to the High Court of Kenya.

Minimum of 1-2 years' previous job experience related to refugee protection.

Demonstrated experience working directly with refugees.

Good knowledge of human rights and protection mainstreaming principles.

Knowledge of Accountability to Affected Population.

Knowledge in PSEA and Anti-Fraud

• Provide legal protection services using a protection case management approach, ensuring client-centered, rights-based, and survivor-informed legal assistance for refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced persons.
• Conduct legal-focused protection assessments as part of case intake to identify legal risks, documentation gaps, detention concerns, custody issues, and access-to-justice barriers.
• Open, manage, and follow up legal protection cases in accordance with HIAS Protection Case Management SOPs, ensuring clear case objectives, informed consent, confidentiality, and safe information sharing.
• Develop legal case plans in collaboration with clients, outlining legal actions, referral needs, timelines, responsible actors, and risk mitigation measures, and regularly review progress.
• Provide legal counseling, information, and representation (where applicable), including: Child custody and child protection–related legal matters, Legal support for survivors of violence against women, girls, men, and boys, Civil documentation, asylum procedures, and arrest or detention-related cases
• Ensure regular client follow-up on legal cases, providing timely feedback on case status, court processes, referrals, and outcomes, and adjusting case plans as circumstances evolve.
• Facilitate safe and confidential referrals between legal services and other protection subsectors, ensuring continuity of care and coordinated response.
• Provide legal services through Huduma Mtaani and other outreach/service delivery points, integrating legal screening into broader protection case identification and tracking.
• Conduct border and detention monitoring, documenting legal protection risks, and initiating individual or group case management interventions where rights violations are identified.
• Maintain accurate legal case documentation and case notes within the data management system, ensuring compliance with data protection and ethical standards.
• Provide technical guidance and supervision to protection monitors, ensuring they identify, refer, and document legal protection cases correctly using standardized tools.
• Review, analyze, and validate protection monitoring reports to identify emerging legal protection trends and translate findings into case referrals, advocacy priorities, and program adjustments.
• Develop legal protection training curricula and deliver capacity-building sessions for protection monitors, community structures, and partners on legal rights, referral pathways, and case management principles.
• Participate in inter-agency legal and protection coordination forums, contributing case-level insights to inform advocacy, system strengthening, and policy engagement.
• Contribute to legal protection and advocacy reporting, using aggregated case data and trends to support efforts aimed at improving the legal and operational environment for refugees and asylum seekers.
• Support community-based legal protection interventions, strengthening community awareness, early identification, and referral of legal protection cases.
• Assist in resource mobilization efforts by providing technical inputs, case statistics, and impact narratives drawn from legal case management outcomes.
• Assist in protection mainstreaming by providing insight into protection interventions for vulnerable refugees
• Facilitate stakeholder training on refugee protection.
• Prepare accurate weekly and monthly activity reports highlighting protection trends, challenges, and service gaps.
• Monitor legal protection trends through data analysis and prepare summaries for presentation in psychosocial panels.
• Produce monthly analyses on emerging protection issues to inform programming, referrals, and community awareness activities.

• Legal counseling
• Case management
• Legal representation
• Data analysis
• Report writing
• Training delivery
• Advocacy
• Protection mainstreaming
• Human rights knowledge
• PSEA knowledge
• Anti-Fraud knowledge

• Bachelor's degree in law
• Advocate to the High Court of Kenya
• 1-2 years' previous job experience related to refugee protection
• Demonstrated experience working directly with refugees
• Good knowledge of human rights and protection mainstreaming principles
• Knowledge of Accountability to Affected Population
• Knowledge in PSEA and Anti-Fraud