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BACKGROUND
Situations of crisis and displacement can exacerbate the risks of Gender-Based Violence (GBV), which is why, multiple strategies are needed to address underlying root causes, support survivors, and mitigate GBV risks by addressing contributing factors. IOM’s standalone GBV programme was established in 2017 in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh to support Rohingya refugees and the surrounding host community at the onset of the influx in line with the Global Call to Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies.
As the Rohingya refugee response has evolved, so has IOM’s GBV programming. Recognising the L3 emergency at its onset, the mission acted immediately to manage resources to meet the required emergency needs working in close coordination with the GBV sub-sector in Cox’s Bazar. Access to life-saving care was severely limited requiring immediate scale up of multisectoral services for GBV survivors. Given the immense needs and scale of the camps and needs of the GBV sub-sector, IOM established 11 Women and Girls Safe Spaces to support survivors and women and girls at heightened risk. To date, IOM directly implements case management services for GBV survivors embedded through its nine safe spaces across eight sites through a survivor-centred model and ensures a multisectoral package of support. IOM provided case management and psychosocial support to 193,149 women and girls and reached 307,164 individuals through outreach and sensitisation (Jan. 2019 - Jun. 2022). The following case studies provide lessons learned, key challenges and best practice in establishing a safe space in the Rohingya refugee camp context and host community that can inform similar interventions for GBV service providers working in other humanitarian emergencies.
Key to note that any safe space programming will need to be adapted and contextualised to its specific humanitarian response in line with interagency minimum standards. It is key to conduct a mapping of existing resources, research and learning prior to establishing a safe space. Some humanitarian settings will have specific guidance for the target population developed in cooperation with the GBV cluster. For example, in the Rohingya response in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, the primary resource is the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and UNFPA (2017) Safe Spaces for Women and Girls (SSWG) Standardization and Technical Guidance – How to set up a SSWG in practice.
GBV actors interested in establishing a safe space should reach out to their respective GBV cluster, sub-sector working group, or the GBV Area of Responsibility (AoR) to check if there are existing contextualised guidelines, relevant lessons learned or reports specific to a given response. Please note this guidance note only provides a snapshot of best practice and is not exhaustive and does not focus on the various detailed steps that go into operationalising a safe space or its different modalities (i.e., standalone, integrated, static, or mobile), which have already been well documented in various toolkits and global guidelines.
Lastly, often the true impacts of these interventions cannot be adequately reflected in donor reports or well captured by numbers alone. This guidance note was also developed to illustrate the value and impact of safe spaces to women and girls and their communities. IOM finds that the anecdotal insights and qualitative information from the women and girls served by these spaces (and the staff working within them) are often the most illuminating of the benefits they provide. A safe space remains one of the most impactful interventions on the lives of affected women and girls who are living in precarious circumstances in displacement or in crisis settings. They are essential human-centred interventions considered a core element of GBV programming in the GBV in Emergencies (GBViE) minimum standards that should constantly be advocated for in humanitarian settings. Safe spaces continue to be gamechangers for women and girls and their communities’ providing benefits that can go beyond the acute stages of an emergency and which can effectively adapt to different phases of a humanitarian response as well as to development settings.