Attachments
1. Introduction
Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by humanitarian workers (“SEA”) can occur in any humanitarian or development context and is a particular risk in emergency contexts characterized by violence, gross power imbalance, mass displacement, restricted access, dismantled family and societal structures and gender and social inequalities.
Beginning 25 August 2017, extreme violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar, drove over 700,000 Rohingya refugees across the border into Cox’s Bazar in the span of a few months. Over two years later, Rohingya refugees continue to arrive in Bangladesh, though in much fewer numbers. In response to this crisis, the UN agencies and international and Bangladeshi NGOs have deployed a large number of humanitarian workers with various degrees of training and capacity. In order to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) risks and respond to allegations reported, the UN Resident Coordinator for Bangladesh called upon the humanitarian community in October 2017 to establish an in-country PSEA Network, coordinating the efforts of the humanitarian community to enact SEA prevention measures, provide assistance to survivors and referring allegations to the relevant investigation units for follow up.
One of the primary activities of the Cox’s Bazar in-country PSEA Network (the “Network”) is to establish and operate a joint complaint system so that any complaint of SEA made in Cox’s Bazar is sent to the relevant investigation unit for follow up and the survivor is referred for assistance services, and protection, thus, the rights of survivors of SEA will be fulfilled, through access to timely and confidential investigation, effective, and safe assistance and support.
These “Standard Operating Procedures on SEA Complaint Referral in Cox’s Bazar” (“CXB SOPs”) define the pathways SEA complaints will follow from receipt through investigation and follow-up and outline the roles of the various actors involved. Both the roles and pathways are in line with the Global Standard Operating Procedures on Inter-Agency in Community-Based Complaint Mechanisms, endorsed by the IASC Principals in June 2016, and reflect the numerous commitments made by agencies to actively engage in Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (“PSEA”). All humanitarian organisations share an ethical responsibility to ensure the protection of beneficiaries from sexual exploitation and abuse. This encompasses timely reporting of, and response to SEA cases, effective monitoring, and prevention of SEA. Thus, each organization participating in the Network is required to have their own internal complaint handling and response procedures for SEA.
This SOP in no way change or override the internal policies of member agencies.
Rather, it supplements those policies by outlining the complaint referral process outside their coverage (i.e. inter-agency).