Sezen Yalçın is a senior Child Protection Specialist and humanitarian and development professional with 15 years of experience in child protection and child rights, community-based protection, gender-based violence, and gender equality.

As a Child Protection Expert with Development Analytics, she supports UNICEF Türkiye and the Ministry of Family and Social Services in shaping national policy for the design and scale up of community-based child protection centres. Her work includes conducting qualitative field research for system analysis and child centre model development, and facilitating multi-stakeholder consultations to support evidence-based planning and decision-making.

She also works as a consultant to ILO Türkiye, supporting public and private actors to prevent child labour and strengthen responsible business conduct in line with international human rights frameworks.

Sezen worked for many years with UNICEF Türkiye as a Child Protection Specialist, leading the design and implementation of multi-sectoral humanitarian programmes in complex emergencies, including the Syria Crisis and Türkiye’s 2023 Earthquake Response. Her work focused on humanitarian coordination and technical leadership, providing guidance to NGOs and government partners on child protection, safeguarding, GBViE, and community-based protection, and ensuring their effective integration into humanitarian responses.

Previously, with Plan International, Sezen took a leading part in the development and implementation of child protection programmes in refugee camps in eastern Chad in response to the Sudan Crisis. Her work included leading the development of comprehensive child protection strategies, providing technical leadership on case management and psychosocial support interventions, and strengthening inter-agency coordination to enable effective and rights-based responses.

Sezen holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University, an MA in Sociology from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), and an MA in Human Rights Law from İstanbul Bilgi University.