Managing the security of aid workers with diverse profiles
Two people in the same vehicle at the same checkpoint do not carry the same risk. This research examines which characteristics change the risk a member of staff carries, and what security management is expected to do about it.
Download the research paper (PDF, English) Download the summary paper (PDF, English)The finding
Security risk management is usually written as though the unit of risk were the organisation and the exposure were uniform. It is not. The research documents how the following characteristics change what a member of staff experiences in the field, and how they compound when more than one applies:
- Gender. Women report higher exposure to sexual harassment and sexual violence, different treatment at checkpoints, and additional constraints on movement imposed by families in the communities where they live.
- Nationality and ethnicity. National staff are often more exposed than international staff and have fewer options, because they cannot be evacuated and remain after the programme closes. Ethnicity determines how a person is read at a checkpoint regardless of their employer.
- Faith. Religious identity and visible practice affect access, acceptance and, in some contexts, the risk of targeting.
- Age. Younger staff are more likely to be deployed to the most difficult locations, and less likely to be believed when they raise a concern about their own safety.
- Disability. Evacuation planning, accommodation, transport and medical cover are all routinely designed without it.
- Sexual orientation. Criminalisation in the country of operation creates a risk that staff cannot raise with their employer without exposing themselves to it.
Why the current approach misses it
Risk assessments generally take the programme as the unit and produce a single level of risk for a location. That level is then applied to everyone, which means it overstates the risk to some staff and understates it for others. The staff for whom it is understated are usually those with the least power to say so.
The research also found an uncomfortable pattern in how concerns are handled. Staff who raise a profile-specific concern are frequently told that the risk applies to everyone, that they are being difficult, or that the posting may not be suitable for them. Each of those responses transfers the problem to the individual.
What the guidance recommends
- Assess risk at the level of the individual as well as the programme, and record the differences rather than averaging them away.
- Give staff a way to raise a profile-specific concern without it being read as a refusal to do the job.
- Review the practical arrangements that create unequal exposure: accommodation, transport, curfew rules, and who is expected to travel where.
- Ensure the response to a report does not place the cost on the person who made it.
- Include national staff in the planning, and accept that some risks cannot be mitigated for them by the same measures that work for international staff.
- Build the profile question into the training of managers, because the decisions that matter are theirs.
Related
Practical guidance and research on the security of humanitarian staff, for the organisations that send them.