Govt partners with UNFPA to strengthen GBV protections ahead of disasters

Women and girls face heightened risk of gender-based violence during disasters, with inadequate reporting mechanisms and a lack of data compounding the problem, according to the United Nations Population Fund, which is partnering with the Government to build coordination systems before the next crisis strikes.

A two-day workshop, which began Monday at UN House in Hastings, brings together government agencies, UN partners, and key representatives to improve coordination and protect vulnerable populations during crises such as natural disasters.

The activity is being spearheaded by the UNFPA in collaboration with the Bureau of Gender Affairs.

Jenny Karlsen, Deputy Director for the UN Population Fund Subregional Office for the Caribbean, explained to Barbados TODAY that the goal of the workshop is to ensure there are systems in place before a disaster occurs.

Jenny Karlsen, Deputy Director for the UN Population Fund Subregional Office for the Caribbean

She said: “You really need to have coordination systems in place ahead of a disaster. If you do not have that, what you often see is that issues of protection for women and girls, issues of ensuring that there’s a continuity of services in terms of responding to gender-based violence, are often deprioritised because, of course, there are a lot of vital issues at play when a disaster hits, water, food, but the reality is that the risks of gender-based violence often increases in these types of settings.”

During the workshop, participants will look at the different services that have to be coordinated across ministries and sectors, said Karlsen. 

“We’re talking also about how to include young people as part of the solutions, and I think also to make sure we have preposition, for example, essential supplies. Today, we also talked about the very, mere fact that women are menstruating and so that hygiene needs are very different from men, and so how do you ensure that the preparedness also integrates these concepts, for example, to have hygiene products prepositioned and distributed to the most vulnerable part of the populations.”

She spoke to the importance of having data, as there is currently a lack of sufficient data to show the exact number of women affected by gender-based violence during disasters because of several factors.

“The other reality that we have to recognise is that very often the reporting mechanisms are not in place or some of the women or girls affected do not feel comfortable to come forth.”

One of the goals of the UNFPA is to increase data collection and encourage reporting of GBV.

“The discussion will also include the collection of data and being able to make people more comfortable with reporting and being able to raise issues that affect them. Issues of reporting gender-based violence is already a challenge, and so we need to talk about how the existing mechanisms are going to pivot in times of disaster.”

Karlsen also shared concern about the increasing instances of virtual gender-based violence, which must be discussed.

“If you look at data globally, it’s really increasing, and we’re only learning now what that means, so as UNFPA we have started globally to organise some workshops and capacities. Workshops to really look at the latest evidence, but we are still learning what would it mean in terms of a disaster.”

She revealed that a recent study explored the virtual gender-based violence of public female figures.

“We have to learn how to address it in everyday life, especially for younger girls who are growing up, but it’s every woman and girl, also women in public life. We have actually, in the subregion, developed a research last year that looked at women in public life, how they feel in terms of online violence. That’s what we see is that it’s an increasing trend.

“We need to work with legislation, policy, awareness and to see how we can really address it, so it’s a changing world and emerging challenges.”

(LG)