Attachments
II. PURPOSE
The overall purpose of the Gender-Based Violence Sub-sector (GBVSS) is to ensure that the Rohingya humanitarian response, building on the lessons learned from the earliest phases of a crisis, provides safe and comprehensive life-saving services for GBV survivors and mitigates the risks of GBV to facilitate inter-agency coordination and consolidate effective GBV interventions to cover emergency preparedness, risk mitigation and response. In order to address GBV in the Cox Bazar District of Bangladesh (refugee camps and targeted host communities), the GBVSS aims to ensure that intersectoral and interagency horizontal coordination is cascaded down from the programmatic to the implementation stage and through vertical coordination, in a rationalized, coordinated and appropriate timely manner.
As per global IASC guidelines, all humanitarian personnel ought to assume GBV is occurring and threatening affected populations in times of crisis; treat it as a serious and life-threatening problem; and take actions regardless of the presence or absence of concrete ‘evidence’ , or when a GBV survivor discloses the incident to a non-GBV actor where focal points are not available in the area of work.
Gender-based violence encompasses “any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will, and that is based on socially ascribed (gender) differences between male and females.”It includes acts that inflict physical, sexual or emotional harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion, and other deprivation of liberty. GBV can occur both in public or private space. As per global guidelines, all humanitarian personnel ought to assume GBV is occurring and threatening affected populations in times of crisis; treat it as a serious and life-threatening problem; and take actions regardless of the presence or absence of concrete ‘evidence’.contribute to GBV mainstreaming across the humanitarian response as outlined in the Joint Response Plan (JRP), develop an effective and inclusive mechanism to address in the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh. The overall goal of the GBVSS, as a coordination body and part of the ISCG humanitarian structure under the umbrella of the Protection Working Group, is to coordinate GBV interventions to support, advise and advocate for timely, accessible, available and quality GBV prevention and response activities.
The human rights based approach to GBV programming will also help to standardized support to meet the differential needs of GBV survivors with a survivor-centered approach outlined in the line with the latest Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) GBV Guidelines, 2 will guide the harmonization of existing good practices to meet the differential needs of GBV survivors, as well as in accordance with relevant international human rights treaty bodies and mechanisms, humanitarian principles, and any other legal framework, including national statutory laws, policies and directives that promote the rights and agency of women and children, or people living with disabilities.
The GBV Sub-sector will undertake its activities within a framework which promotes gender, age and disability inclusion; participation, transparency, partnership, community based interventions and a survivor-centered approach, and will contribute to GBV mainstreaming across the humanitarian response as outlined in the Joint Response Plan (JRP)