Assessment Report I NRC for data collection. All areas that were insecure or controlled by armed groups that did not permit operations were excluded from the assessment. To select IDP household units in each sub-district, NRC and the research team assessed the types of accommodation in the CCCM’s Displacement Tracking Data and sought to proportionally sample the amount of respondents from each sub-district relative to the size of the IDP population and their distribution across different types of accommodation, including in and around informal camps19 in other accommodation, including collective centres,20 and in urban host community settings. Once the breakdown by accommodation type was agreed, the research team used random sampling to identify the individual households which were surveyed. The survey focused on head of household respondents but also aimed to ensure that an equal number of female and male respondents were reached. Given that women are less likely to be household heads, the research team sought to survey heads of household or, alternatively, the most important female in the household to incorporate enough females into the research. 74 per cent of the females interviewed identified themselves as the most important female in the household, while 26 per cent identified themselves as the household head. There were dramatic differences in the reported marital status between the males and females interviewed. As discussed in the report, marital status is an important consideration in relation to realising HLP rights and civil documentation. The majority of those interviewed (59 per cent) reported that they were married; however, the vast majority of these were male, with 95 per cent of male respondents reporting that they were married, while only 23 per cent of female respondents reported that they were married. Almost a third of those interviewed were widowed. Females were vastly over-represented in this category, with 62 per cent of the total number of females surveyed reporting that they were widowed, while only three per cent of males surveyed reported that they were widowed. There were a number of factors that are likely to contribute to this, among them the fact that widowed females are less likely to remarry than widowed males as, if they do, they are at risk of losing custody of their children. 21 Eight per cent of those interviewed were divorced and again, females were over-represented in this category, with 14 per cent of the total number of females surveyed reporting that they were divorced, while only one per cent of surveyed males reported that they were divorced. Divorced females face significant challenges in remarrying in comparison with their male counterparts. Only 19 These are also referred to as informal settlements by the CCCM Cluster in northern Syria. They are defined as follows: ‘a group of tented or other types of housing units established by IDPs themselves, or by non-experienced actors, often erected on land to which the occupants have no legal claim…..[M]ost of the IDP camps in Syria fall under this category. Note that the humanitarian actors operating inside of Syria often make a distinction between formal camps and informal camps. Both of these accommodation types fall under the CCCM definition of informal settlement. The main distinction is that formal camps involve more structures and have set up a systematic mechanism for representation at the community level.’ CCCM Cluster in Northern Syria (2016) Member Induction Package, published 2 August 2016, Global CCCM Cluster and UNHCR. 20 These are also referred to as ‘collective shelters’ and are defined as follows by the CCCM Cluster in Northern Syria: ‘Other types of settlements, i.e. public buildings, schools, private collective buildings, e.g. factories, which are inhabited by five or more IDP families.’ CCCM Cluster in Northern Syria (2016) Member Induction Package, published 2 August 2016, Global CCCM Cluster and UNHCR. Note that there are relatively few collective shelters in Idleb and Aleppo governorates. The CCCM’s Northern Syria Displacement Tracking figures as at 30 June 2016 (which were accessed from the CCCM Cluster in Gaziantep by NRC prior to the assessment) demonstrate this. Of the 85,554 households tracked, only around seven per cent were living in collective centres. Those living in collective centres are under-represented in the assessment that was conducted in north west Syria 21 Under Article 138 of Syrian Personal Status Law, Legislative Decree 59/1953, a woman loses her right to the custody of her children if she remarries a man outside of her deceased husband’s immediate family. This provision of the law is only applied if the deceased husband’s family makes a complaint. NRC Assessment Report I 11