Mesures prises:
Outcome 1: Strengthening Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Programming Responses:
Since 2019, the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) has been coordinating and cooperating with Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement partners, including the ICRC, IFRC and National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies around SGBV prevention and response in emergencies. Specifically, it was a member of the Movement SGBV working group (before it concluded work in 2022) – this group drafted a plan for integration of SGBV into existing IFRC and ICRC workstreams to enhance its sustainability.
CRC has worked with the IFRC, and a group of National Societies, to co-lead a lessons learned review of programming against child marriage in Mali, Nepal, and Australia. CRC is a member of an IFRC led Movement working group on Safeguarding Coordination among donor National Societies; the aim is to enhance coordination of their Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) and child safeguarding efforts when partnering with Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies.
Through Strategic Partnership’s Readiness for Emergency Response Program (RGER) program, a partnership with the Government of Canada’s Global Affairs Canada (GAC), a number of actions have been implemented. For example, all CRC delegates have been trained to integrate the Minimum Standards for Protection Gender and Inclusion (PGI) in Emergencies, using the Dignity, Access, Participation and Safety Framework and their capacity enhanced to mainstream SGBV and Safeguarding into their sector specific activities. In addition, the Health Emergency Response Unit (ERU), SGBV has been scaled up through:
o development of stronger guidance and streamlined processes for sexual violence, domestic violence, violence against children, safeguarding, etc. through the Global ERU-PGI WG so that all the IFRC’s/PNS’s HERU’s comply with standardized processes with all ONSs that they work with.
o availability of medications (e.g. for Safe Abortion Care, post exposure prophylaxis (PEP), Services (SAC, SV and MHPSS), training of staff (both health and PGIE). All this work has been funded through the GAC’s support through the Strategic Partnership to the RGER program.
Two Protection Gender (Equality) and (Social) Inclusion (PGI) rosters of highly experienced technical experts (27), 1) for the health ERU and 2) for surge response are specifically trained on anti-trafficking and survivor centered approaches to SGBV, seeking consent, reporting, case management, referral pathways and feedback mechanisms.
Several missions with trained technical PGI experts, who integrated SGBV prevention training, mapping and dissemination of referral pathways and specific safeguarding expertise were deployed to the Ukraine Regional Crisis in 2022, to Nepal and then Pakistan, and to the ERU deployments in Honduras and Turkiye.
Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) technical experts have been trained to share information with disaster affected people on the provision of SGBV services, reporting mechanisms and providing feedback on any violations of the Code of Conduct or PSEA or Child Protection issues that may arise.
CRC has three international projects that have a specific focus on SGBV. These include Government of Canada funded projects in Mali looking at child marriage, in South Sudan focusing on SGBV prevention and response in schools, and work to address Female Genital Cutting in Somaliland.
Within Canada, CRC has been implementing PGIE tools across all emergency responses categorized as a level 3 or above since 2021 and has implemented robust protection protocols to help mitigate and address SGBV in responses. These tools include the protection protocols, PGIE checklist, and ensuring safe referrals for SGBV are in place, and are stewarded by specialized personnel trained in PGIE in emergencies domestically. To date, 52 individuals have been trained and are able to deploy domestically to implement PGIE tools in emergencies.
Given the high risks of SGBV in emergencies, the CRC also includes PGIE analysis in forecasting and planning efforts, and the PGIE checklist is increasingly used when identifying accommodations/shelter locations.
Outcome 2: Strengthening Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Policy and Advocacy:
In order to promote evidence-based programming, including the strengthening of sex-, age- and disability- disaggregated data to explicitly identify gaps in sexual and gender-based violence policy and programming, CRC is ensuring its international programming, including in emergencies, all apply sex, age, and disability disaggregated data.
To support the supply of medical assistance, including access to sexual and reproductive health services and psychosocial and economic assistance to survivors along with the establishment of safe spaces, CRC has partnered with the IFRC and British Red Cross to develop a protocol for SGBV survivors in 2022 and helped to create a protocol on child protection that includes SGBV elements. CRC has also worked with the ICRC to provide a technical review of its new Protocol on Survivors of Sexual Violence.
Since 2005, CRC has been a leader in the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement on implementing internal organizational processes and mechanisms to prevent, report and respond to allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse and child safeguarding. On an annual basis it monitors and rates the achievement of progress of all international projects against the IASC PSEA Minimum Standards.
In partnership with the IFRC and British Red Cross, CRC has supported the creation of the IFRC online Safeguarding Support Hub with a collection of resources and guidance; it is currently supporting an initiative to translate the Hub materials into Arabic, French, and Spanish. It has also partnered with IFRC and the British Red Cross to develop the first IFRC Safeguarding Action Plan 2022-2025 (PSEA and child safeguarding) with set targets; and it developed a manual on PSEA implementation in the field, five support videos, and community-based resources. CRC has also helped to lead the deployment of the first ever Safeguarding in Emergencies Surge delegates, as part of the 2022 Ukraine Regional Criss Response. Presently, CRC is supporting the IFRC to develop its first Standard Operating Procedures and support too for safeguarding in emergencies.
Recognizing the high risks of SGBV towards children, CRC is providing support to IFRC to develop child specific tools and processes. This includes helping to develop the IFRC Child Safeguarding Policy (2021), model tools for National Societies to adapt, a Child Safeguarding Risk Analysis that is a requirement for all IFRC programs and emergency responses, a Child Participation Toolkit, and adolescent friendly communication tools to help young people know their rights and know where to access protection supports. It is also supporting the development of guidance for National Societies to protect and assist unaccompanied children, a population at particularly high risk of SGBV.
In 2023, CRC co-hosted with IFRC a global Surge training for Protection, Gender, and Inclusion delegates, with a focus on personnel from African countries and those on the CRC roster, to prepare them to deploy in emergencies; this training included as a priority IFRC approaches to SGBV prevention and response.
Furthermore, to support safeguarding, CRC has also been a leader in the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. As part of this, in 2023 it developed a Policy on Safeguarding for Quality Operations and revised its Child Safeguarding Policy. All personnel, including volunteers, who deploy to an emergency will receive training on their roles/responsibilities under the policies. CRC also works with its partner National Societies to assist in their development of similar policies, for example since 2019 in locations such as Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Sudan, Syria, and Lebanon.
Emphasizing that the principle of “do no harm” has been central to all programming. This has included respecting the confidentiality and consent of all survivors of sexual and gender-based violence through a survivor-centered approach in all of CRC programming on SGBV and as an indicator as part of its safeguarding monitoring all projects. CRC is presently examining an approach to develop a protocol for support to survivors/victims of sexual exploitation and abuse.
Since 2019, CRC has been promoting adherence to relevant protection frameworks and minimum standards such as the IFRC Minimum Commitments to Protection, Gender, and Inclusion in Emergency Programming (2019), the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines for Preventing and Responding to Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies (2015), the IFRC Principles and Rules for Humanitarian Assistance, the Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals among others. CRC has developed a specific checklist on the PGIE minimum standards of the IFRC and measures its emergency programming against it for example in Mozambique and Honduras. In 2024 it has also developed minimum standards for its emergency response related programming on safeguarding from sexual exploitation and abuse and for child safeguarding.
In order to raise awareness on SGBV prevention and response in emergencies, each year the CRC organizes various events around the 16 Days of Activism. These include sessions for staff and volunteers, partnerships with local agencies for community events, and public communications.
Though impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, CRC and the Office of the Judge Advocate General (OJAG) continued to undertake efforts to increase reference to prohibitions against sexual and gender-based violence, as well as appropriate responses to instances of violations into CAF training including in support of military partners. In terms of dissemination of information on existing legal provisions that prohibit sexual and gender-based violence as widely as possible in military instruction, the international legal framework applicable to SGVB (International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law) is systematically integrated in material used by CRC when engaged in training with members of the Armed Forces.
CRC has been working to raise awareness about IHL and SGBV through its IHL promotion activities. This includes hosting IHL conferences, public lectures and webinars on the topic. For example, in 2022, a public lecture was hosted in collaboration with the University of Manitoba entitled, Seeking justice for survivors of gender-based crimes in war. In 2023, CRC co—hosted, in collaboration with the Institut d’études internationals de Montréal, an IHL conference entitled Gendered Impacts of Armed Conflict and Application of IHL. A webinar for educators was also held on conflict-related sexual violence, which provided secondary school teachers with resources and tools to introduce the topic in the classroom. CRC also actively participates in the Canadian Women, Peace and Security Network, which tracks the government commitments on advancing the WPS global agenda.
