Managing sexual violence against aid workers
A study of how agencies understood and responded to sexual violence against their staff, and of the distance between what was written in policy and what happened in practice.
What the study found
The starting point was a gap in the sector's own knowledge. Agencies reported incidents. Fewer agencies analysed them. Almost none could say whether the number of reports reflected the number of incidents, because nothing in their systems distinguished a rise in reporting from a rise in harm.
Three findings shaped everything that followed.
Incidents were attributed to the environment. Sexual violence was recorded as a feature of the context, usually in the same category as general criminality or harassment by armed actors. That attribution removed it from the risk register, from the mitigation plan and from anyone's responsibility.
Reporting routes existed and were not used. Where staff did not report, the reason was rarely ignorance of the route. It was an assessment of what would happen to them, their career and their relationships with colleagues if they used it.
Support stopped at the contract. Medical and psychological support was tied to the deployment. The people who needed it most were often those whose contract ended soonest afterwards.
What the guidance recommends
- Put it in the risk assessment. Name sexual violence as a risk. Give it an owner, a likelihood, a severity and a mitigation. An unowned risk is not managed.
- One route, not several. A single reporting route that handles incidents by armed actors, by community members, by colleagues and by partner staff, so that the person reporting does not have to categorise what happened to them before they can speak.
- A route that bypasses the manager. Reporting must be possible without going through the person who may be implicated, or their colleague, or their friend.
- A survivor-led process. Decisions about redeployment, leave, investigation and whether to involve the police are taken with the survivor's stated preference, subject only to the organisation's legal duties and the safety of others.
- Support that outlives the contract. Medical and psychological support continued for as long as it is needed, with the cost carried by the organisation.
- Prevention that changes conditions. Accommodation, transport, curfews and the behaviour managers tolerate. Training alone does not prevent anything.
- Counting that means something. Records that distinguish the type of incident, the relationship between the parties and the action taken, so that the organisation can see what is changing.
The management problem underneath
The guidance is direct about why change was slow. A report of sexual violence creates work, exposure and reputational risk for the manager who receives it, and no measurable benefit. The incentives run the other way. Unless the organisation measures whether reports were handled well, and rewards that, the informal pressure will continue to be toward not reporting.
Related
Practical guidance and research on the security of humanitarian staff, for the organisations that send them.