GBV RESPONDERS NETWORK
Resources for addressing gender-based violence against women and girls in humanitarian settings.
GBV RESPONDERS NETWORK
Integration of GBV and SRHR services is about life saving and life affirming safety, power, and health outcomes for women and girls so they may be healthy, have the power to make decisions concerning their lives, and be protected from harm and supported to recover and thrive. Integrated GBV-SRHR services have always been foundational to Health and GBV response in humanitarian crises. The GBV-SRHR model is not new. It does not come in one shape, modality or form. There are often a variety of GBV-SRH models within one context to increase service entry points for diverse women and girls. As GBV and Health teams collaborate, GBV-SRHR models require us to step outside of our sectors, listen to women and girls, and respond to their rights to empowerment and healing through different service delivery models.
The purpose of the assessment is to explore how integration of SRH/WPE programming is progressing as perceived by staff on the ground, what factors are enabling success and what factors are preventing integration, as well as the perceived value of integration in improving health and safety outcomes for women and girls. In addition, there is a lack of evidence on the benefits and risks of integration in community-based integration versus traditional health facilities and Women and Girls’ Safe Spaces (WGSS), so the data gathered for this assessment could provide more of such evidence.
Recording of Presentation of assessment findings (March 2022) (slides in English and French)
As the COVID-19 pandemic unraveled, the chasm between needs and service provision became more and more striking. Concurrently, the necessity of promoting women and girls’ empowerment to support them in making informed decisions regarding their SRH, rights, wellbeing, and access to services, as well as influence overall programming, asserted itself as urgent. This learning brief draws on the experience of IRC integrated SRH and WPE interventions in humanitarian settings, with a specific focus on the implementation of a GAC-funded project during COVID-19. The overarching objective is to identify key takeaways and lessons learned to guide and improve integrated SRH and WPE programming in crisis.
Clinical care for women subjected to violence is a life-saving service and a core component of the Minimum Initial Standard Package (MISP) for SRH in crisis settings.
The training curricula are aimed at health-care providers because they are in a unique position to address the health and psychosocial needs of women who have experienced violence. They also seek to make managers, policymakers, and implementers of health services and professional training more aware of violence against women, to encourage an evidence-informed health-sector response and improve capacity building of health-care providers and other members of multidisciplinary teams.
There are currently two recommended training curricula available for humanitarian settings:
Due to the guiding principles of respect, dignity, confidentiality, and privacy it not possible to supervise providers as they engage with survivors of GBV. Therefore, provider-survivor interaction videos are essential resources for a successful training. These videos were created in a partnership with NCA and are available in French, English, and Arabic
Based on years of discussions with service providers from health and protection sectors, this booklet aims to break down some of the persistent myths concerning female virginity and establish provider responsibilities around virginity testing. The information provided is based on existing literature and international recommendations.
Read the booklet in French, English and Arabic
IRC and Johns Hopkins University worked on the piloting, implementation and evaluation of the ASIST-GBV, a GBV screening tool developed by JHU specifically for use among women and older adolescent girls in humanitarian settings. Findings from the evaluation indicate that, with the appropriate measures taken and prerequisites met, GBV screening by health providers has the potential to 1) create a confidential environment where survivors can speak openly about their experiences with GBV, 2) ensure competent care and referrals based on individual needs and wishes of survivors, and 3) increase community awareness about GBV issues, thereby reducing stigma and improving attitudes.
GBV screening remains a controversial intervention in spite of research supporting the activity.