Sexual Harassment, Exploitation and Abuse in Emergency Contexts - A Basic Module for Staff Orientation

Sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse of any person is a serious human rights violation and needs to be prevented and eliminated. In an emergency context, there is often a breakdown of the usual protective institutions such as the family, community, government, police and so on. Sustainable means of livelihood get severely affected and there are huge psychosocial implications on the lives of the affected. In such a scenario, the likelihood of any kind of harassment, exploitation or abuse, especially of a sexual nature, increases due to increased vulnerability, lowered resistance and stark powerlessness experienced by those who survive the emergency situation.

In order to fulfill CARE's commitment towards prevention and response to any form of sexual harassment, exploitation or abuse of program participants, those at CARE have to, at a minimum, ensure that all staff develop a basic awareness about the seriousness of the issue and of CARE's policy and code of conduct in this regard. Sexual exploitation is a complex and sensitive issue that needs more time and reflection to develop deeper understanding. This module, that is expected to run for approximately 3 hours, has been developed to serve as a basic orientation module that all CARE staff must be required to attend before they are assigned to work in emergency projects or programs.

The aim of the module is to provide a training resource, which could be used to sensitize and orient the target group - humanitarian aid workers of CARE and its partners -- deployed in emergency contexts to the issue of sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse with a human rights perspective. The first activity allows the workshop to get started with participant introductions and sharing of the expectations, agenda and norms for the workshop. The second activity aims to create awareness about basic aspects related to sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse through the enactment and analysis of a role-play. The third and final activity aims to sensitize participants to individual responsibilities to prevent and respond to incidents of sexual harassment/exploitation/abuse through an opportunity to engage with two different scenarios depicting CARE's relief work in emergency contexts.