As the international community continues to respond to the massive relief and recovery needs in the Philippines, it is imperative that assistance is delivered from the start in ways that mitigate protection risks and ensure safe and equal access for women and girls as well as men and boys.
The Gender-based Violence Area of Responsibility (GBV AoR) reminds all humanitarian partners that in the chaotic aftermath of a disaster, women and children are particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence, including rape and other forms of sexual and physical violence by strangers, those distributing aid, and family members. Women and children are also at increased risk of sex trafficking or transactional sex in order to provide the basic necessities for their families. Depending on the context, women may also be isolated from accessing critical aid and information on services.
The humanitarian community must not forget a critical protection lesson highlighted in the Inter-Agency Real Time Evaluation in Haiti three months after the 2010 earthquake. Writing about mainstreaming cross cutting issues including gender and protection in the response, the evaluators found: “…agencies adopted the position that they could come back to fix these issues once time pressure had decreased.
However after three months it is clear that factors which are not designed into a project from the very beginning rarely get fixed later on.”