New Report: Preventing Gender-Based Violence in Humanitarian Emergencies
Thursday, April 3, 2014 12:35 PM

Researchers at London’s Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) have released a “Good Practice Review” for addressing gender-based violence (GBV), or violence against women and girls, in humanitarian crises. The report examines several aspects of the issue, including: the lack of agreement among humanitarian practitioners on how to prevent and respond to GBV; differing definitions of GBV and the impact of these divergences upon humanitarian responses; the programming choices agencies can make to help prevent or reduce GBV; programs in internally displaced persons camps that train camp leaders in GBV and give women greater voice and agency within the camps; the links between food insecurity and GBV; and how to tailor humanitarian responses to the needs of adolescent girls.
A related paper produced by HPN, Preventing and responding to gender-based violence in humanitarian crises, was presented at the March 2014 Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development Conference, which focuses on women and aid. The paper concludes that knowledge of GBV in emergencies is inadequate and recommends that, because GBV will be an increasing concern for humanitarian agencies working in crisis environments, humanitarian actors “need to understand [GBV] better, and design better interventions to address it, both in the immediate emergency phase and over the longer term.”
HPN is an independent forum where field workers, managers and policymakers in the humanitarian sector share information and analysis, and is part of the British think-tank Overseas Development Institute.
Compiled from: Humanitarian Practice Network, Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies, Humanitarian Exchange Magazine: Issue 60 (February 2014); Humanitarian Practice Network, Preventing and responding to gender-based violence in humanitarian crises, Network Paper Number 77 (January 2014); This year at DIHAD: Women and aid, IRIN News (Mar. 24, 2014).
For more information

Please see the Gender Violence Worldwide and Sexual Assault sections of this website.