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Alina Potts

Former Specialist (Former title)

Alina Potts joined Innocenti in March 2015 to coordinate the Multi-Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children. She also provides technical advice on applied research examining the intersection between intimate partner violence and violence affecting children in emergencies, led by UNICEF and the CPC Learning Network. She holds an MPH from Columbia University in Forced Migration and Health, and has led gender-based violence programming in a number of humanitarian responses over the past 10 years. Alina also has experience in field-based research on grave violations against children in conflict, and has worked with refugees and asylum seekers in the US, UK and Ireland.

Publications

Research that Drives Change: Conceptualizing and Conducting Nationally Led Violence Prevention Research
Publication

Research that Drives Change: Conceptualizing and Conducting Nationally Led Violence Prevention Research

Globally, studies have demonstrated that children in every society are affected by physical, sexual and emotional violence. The drive to both quantify and qualify violence through data and research has been powerful: discourse among policy makers is shifting from “this does not happen here” to “what is driving this?” and “how can we address it?” To help answer these questions, the Multi-Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children – conducted in Italy, Viet Nam, Peru and Zimbabwe – sought to disentangle the complex and often interrelated underlying causes of violence affecting children (VAC) in these four countries. Led by the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti with its academic partner, the University of Edinburgh, the Study was conducted by national research teams comprised of government, practitioners and academic researchers in each of the four countries.
The multi-country study on the drivers of violence affecting children. A cross-country snapshot of findings
Publication

The multi-country study on the drivers of violence affecting children. A cross-country snapshot of findings

What We Know about Ethical Research Involving Children in Humanitarian Settings: An overview of principles, the literature and case studies
Publication

What We Know about Ethical Research Involving Children in Humanitarian Settings: An overview of principles, the literature and case studies

This working paper identifies and explores the issues that should be considered when undertaking ethical research involving children in humanitarian settings. Both the universal (i.e. relevant to all research involving children) and specific ethical issues that may arise when involving children in research in humanitarian settings are examined.

Blogs

A ‘toxic cocktail’: How life on the margins can exacerbate children’s vulnerability to violence
Blog

A ‘toxic cocktail’: How life on the margins can exacerbate children’s vulnerability to violence

For too many children, the places where they should feel safe—at home, at school, in their communities—are the first and most frequent sites of violence. The latest data presented in UNICEF’s A Familiar Face shows, for example, that nearly 300 million children between the ages of 2 and 4 experience violent discipline by their caregivers on a regular basis. Reasons for this are nuanced, varied, and may be underpinned by social norms; for example, some caregivers may believe that such discipline is a demonstration of being a ‘good’ parent, while some may be influenced by how they believe other parents in their community discipline their children. Reading these statistics can be overwhelming; leading to a sense of futility. Yet we seek to understand the violence in children’s lives in order to better respond to it, and ultimately, to stop it from happening in the first place. Focusing our attention on interpersonal violence against children—revealing its scope, magnitude, causes and contributing factors—continues to be instrumental in identifying ways to address it. Solutions to ending violence against children must be as diverse and nuanced as its causes. A psychologist talks to a young woman victim of rape. The centre assists cases like this and children who have been trafficked or sexually or physically abused, children stay at the centre until they can be reunited with their families.In seeking to better understand causes and responses to violence, social scientists often design studies to identify ‘risk’ and ‘protective’ factors that may put children with certain characteristics, or experiences, more at risk of violence, or more likely to be protected from it. Recent research confirms the importance of understanding and identifying risk and protective factors for children to various harms including physical and sexual abuse and emotional maltreatment. Pinpointing these factors is crucial in developing prevention, early intervention strategies and support needs for individual children and families. At the same time, an over-emphasis on the factors that put children at risk, or what makes them and their families more vulnerable to violence –their  “vulnerabilities” – can lead to individualising causes and responses to violence against children. Vulnerability may be understood as the “circumstances, conditions or events that increase the probability that a family will have poor outcomes in the future.” Where these circumstances and conditions are narrowly defined, sight of the social and economic conditions that create or exacerbate children’s precarity may be lost. Children and their caregivers may even be deemed responsible for both the situations they find themselves in and for providing the remedies. For too many children, the places where they should feel safe—at home, at school, in their communities—are the first and most frequent sites of violence.For these reasons we pose the question: ‘How can concepts of vulnerability and marginalisation be considered in research, policy, advocacy and programs to enhance efforts to understand what drives violence against children and what can be done about it?’ Individuals, families, and communities cannot ‘lift themselves up by their bootstraps’ if the historical and political systems and structures within which they exist—operating at sub-national, national, regional and/or global levels—do not also change. As such, the concept of children’s marginalisation may help expose the “set of process[es] which ignores or relegates individuals or groups to the sidelines of political space, social negotiation, and economic bargaining. Homelessness, age, language, employment status, skill, caste, race, and religion are some criteria historically used to marginalize.” According to a UNESCO report, in this way marginalisation – or the toxic cocktail of inherited disadvantage, deeply ingrained social processes, unfair economic arrangements and bad policies - is consistent with the equity agenda, in that it illuminates factors over which children have no control… [which] matters because successful measures to tackle marginalization have to target specific underlying causes that may be missed by blanket interventions. One example of how of vulnerability and marginalisation have both been conceptualised and deployed to understand violence against children is in UNICEF’s recent Multi-Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children. The Drivers study comprised nationally-led data gathering in four country sites—Italy, Peru, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe—which focused on uncovering the institutional and structural drivers of physical, sexual and emotional violence against children, with the aim of creating an evidence base upon which policies and programs to prevent and respond to such violence could be built or improved. As its “Snapshot of Findings” notes: Unequal power dynamics operate across gender, age and other status markers creating the circumstances within which violent acts occur. Violent acts are not merely an interaction between a child and one or more other individuals, but rather a socio-ecological phenomenon. This study shows how factors on multiple levels – individual characteristics, inter-personal relationships, and the communities in which people live – interact with institutional and structural drivers to increase or reduce a child’s risk.The Drivers study adapts Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development to visually represent the interplay between micro- and meso-levels—individual, interpersonal, and community—with macro-level forces which it terms ‘drivers’. These are characterized either as structural drivers, defined as ‘rapid socio-economic transformations accompanied by economic growth but also instability, poverty, migration and gender inequality’; or institutional drivers, identified as ‘legal structures, ineffective child protection systems, weak school governance and harmful social and cultural norms, which often serve to reinforce children’s vulnerabilities.’ The Drivers study applies this socio-ecological framework to synthesizing and analysing existing data about VAC across these four diverse countries. In doing so, it posits that commonly, understandings of interpersonal violence towards children focus on risk and protective factors  at the individual, interpersonal and community levels, while their interaction with structural and institutional drivers may be less explicit—yet it is exactly this interaction that delineates how, where, when and why violence occurs in children’s lives. Source: Maternowska, M.C. and Potts, A. (2017). The Multi-Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children: A Child-Centred Integrated Framework for Violence Prevention, UNICEF Office of Research, Florence, Italy.A Child Centred Framework for Violence Prevention proposed by the authors highlights the applications of this approach: that policies and programs which ‘consider the interplay of both macro and micro forces on children’s well-being, and how these forces affect their enabling environment, are likely to be more effective than simply addressing risk and protective factors alone.’ This reoriented framework (above) also serves to make visible the process of marginalisation that so often is subsumed in discourse about an individual or group’s ‘vulnerability’.  It shows how, for example, applying such a framework to the design of parenting programmes—a now universally-recommended approach—to reduce violent discipline allows for contextualization (in this case, to the Vietnamese context) as well as recognition that the interactions within households are determined by many factors without: …a mapping of parents’ behavior may reveal factors including their financial security and/or level of education, the family’s connections to formal and non-formal support systems in their community, and prevailing beliefs influence affected by less proximal but still important factors such as living within an institutionalized caste system, or in a country where many adults or children migrate in search of work.Thus applying the concepts of both ‘vulnerability’ and ‘marginalisation’ allows for fuller recognition of the drivers that both hinder and promote girls’ and boys’ strengths and capabilities at individual, household- and community-levels. Applying these lenses is thus a critical practice for practitioners, activists, researchers and policymakers seeking to identify, put in place, and share solutions to address and prevent violence against children.    
Lessons from Lebanon in preventing violence against women and girls
Blog

Lessons from Lebanon in preventing violence against women and girls

Women’s organizations in Lebanon are a force to be reckoned with—even in the frontier town of Arsaal, which occupies a high plateau in the northeast of the country and is often the site of spillover battles from the Syrian War. It was there that a group of dedicated and organized women from the community greeted me when I arrived in the fall of 2012. I had come to learn about available services for survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), and help put in place the additional programming and advocacy needed. The group of women ran a daycare center and offered to dedicate part of that space, during set times, to women’s programming—when survivors of violence could confidentially access support without drawing the suspicion or attention of others. In the international jargon, interpersonal violence may be referred to by the acronyms “VAC” for violence against children, and “VAW” for violence against women. The fact that “VAC” and “VAW” overlap should not be surprising. Violence is too often a part of women’s lives, often witnessed by their children, and the experience of violence often directly affecting children. Adolescent girls, in many ways treated as women while still developing and forging relationships with the world around them, can face heightened vulnerabilities. Globally, slightly more than 1 in 10 adolescent girls aged 15-19 years (around 120 million) have experienced forced sexual acts, including rape. A 7 year old girl in a refugee camp in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley saw her father killed and her family fled to the town or Arsaal in Lebanon. Amira, 7 years: “We left my hometown, Homs in Syria under difficult circumstances. My father was shot. I was terribly shocked. My body shivered, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t eat."Another intersection occurs by place: the home, which should be a safe haven, but is often the site of abuse. A new report by UNICEF, A Familiar Face: Violence in the lives of children and adolescents notes that 1 in 4 children under the age of 5 – representing some 176 million children globally—live with a mother who is a victim of intimate partner violence, also known as ‘domestic’ violence.  In emergencies, this violence in the home may be exacerbated at the same time as existing systems for support may fall apart or be displaced. As one woman who had fled violence in Aleppo, and was living in a tented settlement, told me: “There is pressure all the time, we’re tired all the time. There are no separate rooms, people become angry from the smallest thing. I hear families screaming – husbands and wives." Emergencies exacerbate daily stressors and introduce new challenges. At the same time, they may present surprising opportunities for positive change. The Syrian War, and its effects on Lebanon, offer key lessons for those working to address violence against women and violence against children across humanitarian and development settings. Emergencies exacerbate daily stressors and introduce new challenges. At the same time, they may present surprising opportunities for positive change.Each of the four lessons drawn out below also showcase how applied research—whether nationally-driven or drawn from multi-country or global studies—is critical to informing limited prevention and response resources. Lesson 1:  Partner with women’s organizations at the frontlines Lebanese women’s organizations have long been providing services to survivors of violence. Some organizations were established or strengthened to meet the needs arising out of the country’s fourteen-year civil war. Two leading organizations, KAFA (Enough) Violence & Exploitation and ABAAD Resource Center for Gender Equality, quickly adapted to respond to the needs of Syrian refugees following their displacement in 2012. They partnered with government actors and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies who arrived in Lebanon to respond, or expanded their existing programs. In order to better understand public awareness of family violence, and factors that influence help-seeking behavior, KAFA requested research that was carried out by Ipsos Marketing in 2016. The study estimates that almost half the population personally know someone affected by domestic violence, and assesses their knowledge of and trust in organizations and laws meant to support them. Such demand-driven research is easily applied to improving existing services and advocacy efforts, as well as informing their adaptation for emergency-affected populations. Undertaking research in collaboration with civil society, academic, and/or government stakeholders—with linkages to relevant networks—not only improves accountability to the current and future populations it is meant to benefit, but also minimizes ‘over-research’. This phenomenon is already documented within the Lebanese context in respect to Palestinian refugees (see this recent editorial in Nature, originally published five years ago). Lesson 2: Strengthen formal and informal support In Lebanon, the arrival of a large number of Syrian refugees, who had faced conflict-related violence served to shine a spotlight on the ways in which formal prevention and response mechanisms to address the specialized needs of survivors were lacking. Humanitarian actors trained in GBV and ‘child protection’ were quick to partner with government and civil society organizations, training cadres of social workers, health professionals, law enforcement and justice actors in key competencies necessary for responding to cases of abuse and exploitation. Yet how would this be institutionalized, once the inevitable reduction in funding and attention occurs? How can capacity built within the social service workforce and partners be sustained? This is where lesson #1 enters in again: ABAAD now offers a free, online learning course on GBV Case Management in Emergency Settings, based on a curriculum developed by Dr. Lina Abirafeh and other members of a national technical taskforce that came together in the early days of the response to promote a coordinated, nationally-led approach. Lebanese American University has since developed a certificate program in Gender in Development and Humanitarian Assistance, further strengthening Lebanon’s cadre of policymakers and practitioners, researchers and academics, activists and advocates with continued education and credentialing. But what about informal support networks, made up of the people closest to victims of violence whom they often turn to first –friends, family members, religious leaders, and trusted community members?  And why is this important? Syrian refugee women meeting at an informal settlement in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon say their daughters have been married early mostly to address grinding poverty after hundreds of families have fled here from the Syrian war. The work of the Lebanese KAFA NGO has helped raised awareness among the women, men and the youth of the damaging impact of early marriage.The KAFA/Ipsos study cited above found that around 1/3 of those surveyed in Lebanon would advise those affected by violence to turn to family rather than file a formal complaint. This is not unique: a review of seven countries in which national surveys on violence against children (“VACS”) had been undertaken found that the proportion of victims accessing formal services was generally 10% or less. A World Health Organization study on domestic violence against women in 10 countries found that, “Where women do seek help, they primarily turn to informal sources of support, particularly family and friends, rather than to formal sources." Stigma, mistrust, and a dearth of appropriate and accessible services are some of the reasons why victims of violence may never contact the formal mechanisms meant to serve them. Efforts to better link informal and formal support systems are important. Lesson 3: Connect the dots—in policy and in practiceIn 2012, a survivor of domestic violence in Lebanon had few legal remedies available: affairs of the household are governed by personal status laws according to an individual’s religious affiliation. This not only meant that women could not seek protection from law enforcement. It also meant that they could not safely leave a violent marriage without risk of losing their children. Children may also be directly assaulted and/or witness domestic abuse. Research has shown that children who experience or witness violence at a higher risk of experience and perpetration in adulthood, and the effects are gendered. Girls are more likely to accept violence in adult relationships as normal, and boys are likely to repeat their father’s violent behavior. Syrian refugee women meeting at an informal settlement in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon where they discuss the damaging impact of early marriage and violence. Many feel their daughters are more protected from violence and sexual abuse if they are married. The work of the Lebanese KAFA NGO has helped raised awareness among the women, men and the youth of the damaging impact of early marriage, including girls dropping out of school and having children before their body is able to safely go through motherhood.Women’s organizations in Lebanon knew this intimately. Over the last five years, some of their advocacy efforts have started to bear fruit. In 2014, the Lebanese parliament passed Law 293, with the purpose of protecting women and other family members from domestic violence and physical abuse. Important gaps remain, yet the law represents a foundation upon which Lebanese civil society can build. Importantly, it raises questions about how child witnesses of domestic violence and child survivors of domestic violence—i.e. child brides—are protected in the eyes of the Lebanese judicial system. Connecting the dots includes ensuring that those most directly affected by violence, and the people in their lives to whom they may turn to for support, have access to accurate, up-to-date, easily understandable information. Lesson 4:  Communicate clearly, constantly, and creatively Lebanese communication campaigns go far beyond brochures and websites: activists often take to the streets with billboards, theater, and debate. Their campaigns are designed to address the underlying social and gender norms that silence and shame those affected—and that promote harmful behaviors which are codified with Lebanese law. Major campaigns have centered around abolishing parts of the Lebanese penal code that allow men who perpetrate rape to marry their (underage) victims and escape penalties by doing so, and raising the minimum age for marriage. While rates of child marriage are relatively low in Lebanon (with approximately 6% of girls married by age 18), the phenomenon is well-documented and reportedly rising among Syrian refugees living there: a recent UNFPA study found that 24% of the 15 to 17-year-old girls they spoke with were married, and acknowledges that some estimates “show child marriage rates to be four times higher among Syrian refugees today than among Syrians before the crisis." Increased attention to child marriage as a negative coping mechanism among displaced populations arguably supports organizations like KAFA, ABAAD, and the Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering (RDFL), who have been working for years to address the issue within Lebanese laws. Progress is slow, but recent developments are promising. Engaging in programming, advocacy, and research driven by women’s and children’s rights organizations has served to advance change in Lebanon at a critical time in the country’s history, hosting the highest per capita refugee population in the world -  with over 1.5 million Syrian refugees alone. Serving this large influx of people in need is possible, in part, because of the layering of locally- and nationally-driven responses to problems of violence that are present in times of ‘peace’ and now exacerbated by war and displacement. Recognition of the intersections between violence affecting women and children is growing, around the world, in development and humanitarian settings UNICEF is partnering with Columbia University to investigate drivers of household violence in emergencies and identify promising interventions. Returning to Arsaal, perhaps the final lesson is one in commitment and resourcefulness: a kindergarten converted—during the hours not in use—into a center for survivors of domestic violence is not ideal. Yet it met a very real need, in a setting with few resources, for women and children who face heightened levels of violence and abuse due to the power differentials inherent in their age and gender. Alina Potts is a research and evaluation specialist with UNICEF Innocenti. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website.
When over 500 minds converge to prevent gender-based violence
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When over 500 minds converge to prevent gender-based violence

Late last month, over 500 researchers, policymakers, donors and activists descended on the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the 5th bi-annual Sexual Violence Research Initiative Forum, the largest global gathering focusing on gender-based violence (GBV) in low- and middle-income countries. The forum has become the venue to connect with others working to prevent and respond to GBV, hear the newest research and evidence, network and collaborate. The theme of this year’s forum, “Partnerships for Policy Action,” is apt given the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for the first time, include targets to eliminate violence along with tracking and accountability mechanisms for national governments. Dr. Claudia Garcia Moreno of the World Health Organization opened the Forum by reflecting on the great progress made and long road still ahead. She stressed the need for partnerships and a multi-sectoral, participatory approach to tackle the complex forces that drive violence, particularly involving youth, who will determine the landscape of the future. Dr. Garcia Moreno re-emphasized attention to vulnerable groups, including ethnic minorities, and the need to move from intervention testing to effective scale-up of programs that “work.” Although progress has been made in establishing that violence against children is a problem in every country, data alone is not sufficient without processes to contextualize it and use it actively to inform programming, direct policy, and monitor achievementThis years’ forum was the largest to date, with over 350 presentations, workshops and satellite meetings attended by 535 participants, an increase from Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2015 (129 presentations among the 398 attendees) and Bangkok, Thailand in 2013 (105 presentations among the 180 attendees). The Forum’s rapid growth reflects how gender based violence is increasingly recognized as a key global issue and connected to other forms of interpersonal and structural violence. The commitment to end violence is also growing among activists, practitioners, researchers and policymakers. A social worker consults a family in Kandal province, Cambodia. The family has been severely affected by gender-based violence and is in need for social protection and support.For a comprehensive summary of new research and evidence presented at the forum, see its website (where presentations will be posted). The following summaries reflect UNICEF’s contributions, as well as four priority areas of focus. How do we leverage global data on violence affecting children and use it for policy action?This was the topic of an inter-agency panel organized by UNICEF Innocenti, which began with the first ever presentation of global age-, sex-, and perpetrator-specific estimates of childhood violence from a systematic review led by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s (LSHTM) Karen Devries. These results were also recently released as part of the Know Violence in Childhood Initiative, suggesting that a larger number of children are subject to violence than previously estimated. Audrey Pereira (Innocenti) then presented joint ongoing work estimating the percentage and determinants of disclosure and help-seeking among childhood violence survivors across six countries, suggesting the rates of formal help seeking are extremely low, with implications for reducing barriers children face. Innocenti’s Alina Potts and UNICEF Philippines’ Faye Balanon presented work from the Multi-Country Study on the Drivers of Violence Affecting Children, detailing how nationally-led research processes can drive country-level policy change. Although progress has been made in establishing that violence against children is a problem in every country, data alone is not sufficient without processes to contextualize it and use it actively to inform programming, direct policy, and monitor achievement in these areas as well as toward the global SDGs. The understudied linkages between economic empowerment and violence reductionThere is increasing evidence that economic empowerment interventions have potential to decrease violence, a potential explored in a recently published Innocenti review of social safety nets and violence against children. At the Forum, Innocenti’s Amber Peterman presented joint work exploring the intersection of cash transfers and intimate partner violence, reviewing mixed methods studies indicating that the majority of rigorous work to date shows cash can decrease violence through a variety of mechanisms. In the same session, Shalini Roy of the International Food Policy Research Institute presented new work from Bangladesh showing that cash plus behavior change communication reduced intimate partner violence six months after the intervention ended. The Forum also featured alternative economic interventions, such as ongoing work on a youth-parent livestock asset transfers also in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Nancy Glass of John Hopkins University). We look forward to the forum spurring more cross-disciplinary work on economic empowerment and structural interventions to reduce violence between specialists on violence against women and girls and development economists (among others). UNICEF scholarship recipient Joyce sits outside her home in Ndirande township in Blantyre with UNICEF Malawi’s Doreen Matonga. An outstanding student and talented poet, Joyce is top of her class which has a total of 122 children.Gender based violence in EmergenciesUNICEF’s long-standing work, led by Mendy Marsh, has contributed greatly to the professionalization and standardization of both prevention and response of gender based violence in emergencies. This was evident in several panels showcasing inter-agency and sector-leading tools supported and (co)led by UNICEF, including the new Inter-Agency Case Management Guidelines, findings from the “Communities Care” program using social norms theory to reduce GBV in South Sudan and Somalia, and sharing learning and uptake from the first 18 months of rolling out the revised IASC GBV Guidelines. Research in emergencies is possible and vital to informing programming, particularly in protracted crises; the ethics and methods for doing such work were showcased in a pre-conference workshop by the International Rescue Committee and the Global Women’s Institute of George Washington University, who are developing field-friendly guidance to fill gaps in this area. Work showcasing the use of mobile technologies, mixed and qualitative methods, and effectiveness of programs to prevent violence. For example, the work of Mazeda Hossain and Alys McAlpine (LSHTM), the International Rescue Committee, and other colleagues to evaluate programs providing care for gender based violence survivors in Dadaab refugee camp reflects on the impacts this kind of work has on the refugee community workers who often serve as ‘frontline’ responders in their own communities.  The role of social norms in changing harmful behaviors that underpin gender based violenceGender discrimination is recognized as a root cause of violence against women and girls, often underpinned by unequal ‘gender norms’ and harmful ‘social norms.’ Panels focused on the effectiveness of interventions to change harmful social norms and introduce positive social norms among couples, youth, and communities. These included UNICEF’s Communities Care program (mentioned above), identifying entry points for changing social norms promoting gender based violence among young people in the Latin America and Caribbean region and Tunisia, and the Gender Roles, Equality, and Transformations (GREAT) project conducted by Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health, Save the Children, and Pathfinder International. This initiative aims to understand how gender norms are learned, internalized and passed on among adolescents (ages 10-19). As reflected upon by a participant during the closing session, much of this work assumes that beliefs must be changed before changes in behavior can be achieved, but how do we know that to be the case? Further research is needed to understand how much behavior can change in spite of, or in contradiction to people’s beliefs. The closing plenary with talks by re-emphasized the messages shared by Emma Fulu of the Equality Institute at the start of the conference, including the need to re-establish a feminist approach to combating GBV, one that centers the voices of women and girls in work to end violence against them, and that values different forms of knowledge rather than solely medicalized or technocratic approaches. The importance of inter-sectorality and partnerships was highlighted, as well as a need to meaningfully engage with vulnerable groups such as indigenous populations to end the often overlapping or ‘intersectional’ violence they face. In the words of one courageous survivor of childhood sexual abuse who now works tirelessly against it, Brisa de Angulo of Bolivia, “Nothing about us without us.” There was recognition that despite the growth in numbers, the community working to end violence is relatively small in comparison to the magnitude of the issue—thus a reminder that we “always need to keep marching” to make progress for those less fortunate than ourselves (alluding to the latest march against femicide after the murder of 19-year-old Mara Fernanda Castilla in Mexico). Finally, youth activists from around the world performed for the participants, reflecting on what they had seen, heard, and contributed during the conference, reminding us to put our efforts into evidence for real change, rather than academic accolades. We heartily congratulate the SVRI secretariat on organizing another successful international Forum and look forward to checking back in on how we are progressing in terms of voice, accountability, and evidence, at the next Forum in South Africa in 2019 (in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa)! Amber Peterman is a Social Policy Specialist and Alina Potts is a Research and Evaluation Specialist in Child Protection at the UNICEF Innocenti. For additional information, see Innocenti’s research program on violence, including the Multi-Country Study on VAC, SVRI-funded work linking education to violence in Malawi and Uganda (brief), and our research on cash transfers, women’s asset ownership and violence. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website.
‘Nobody will answer you if you talk’: The case for research on trafficking in emergencies
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‘Nobody will answer you if you talk’: The case for research on trafficking in emergencies

In the spring of 2013, I traveled to northern Syria as part of an international organization’s emergency response team. Over the course of that year, more than a hundred thousand people would flee fighting further south only to find the border with Turkey closed, and seek safety in makeshift camps strewn among parched olive groves. My task was to rapidly assess women and girls’ protection needs and set up programs to respond to them, building on the initial steps being taken to provide water, sanitation, and safe spaces for children.Adolescent girls showed me latrines without doors and locks that they did not feel safe using. Women were concerned about overcrowded tents, where extended families and even strangers slept in extremely close quarters. A doctor from Aleppo—who had been treating survivors of sexual violence—told me how she continued to do so here, the violence often directly resulting from the conditions in which women and girls found themselves.Adolescent girls showed me latrines without doors and locks that they did not feel safe using. Women were concerned about overcrowded tents, where extended families and even strangers slept in extremely close quarters.Parents spoke of older neighbours who offered to protect their young daughters by marrying them; an option they did not want to accept, but which seemed better than the dangers posed by living in such insecurity. Young Syrian men talked of dwindling prospects for marriage and family life, as they felt they had nothing left to offer a potential spouse. Everyone spoke of ‘foreigners’ – sometimes fighters – who would come looking for Syrian females to marry and bring back across the border to Turkey, or further away, to the Balkans or Central Asia. Four years later, such stories have only become more pronounced.A girl who has been displaced by conflict runs amid ancient ruins, where she is currently sheltering in the area of Jebel al Zawiya, Syria. Displaced women stand behind her. The ruins have become a source of refuge as they are less likely to be attacked.Trafficking: a neglected issue in humanitarian emergencies In a variety of emergency and displacement settings from Greece to Afghanistan – and along the precarious migration trajectories that connect them – trafficking can be specifically linked to widely recognized issues of sexual exploitation and child marriage traditionally addressed by ‘protection’ actors.[1] While a growing number of standards and tools for addressing such issues exists, practical guidance on how best to meet the needs of those who have been trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation—or to prevent it from occurring in the first place—remains limited.Instead, human trafficking is often misunderstood or left unaddressed in emergencies. It is usually viewed as a pre-existing problem that is not a direct consequence of conflict or natural disaster, better left to law enforcement or social welfare services to address. The humanitarian sector lacks a systematic, institutional response and tends to work in silos, further complicating its ability to coordinate with and learn from these diverse actors. Numbers that speak to the scale of the issue are notoriously hard to come by in that even rudimentary monitoring and research efforts must be weighed against important ethical and safety concerns, both for those being trafficked and those seeking to shine light on the issue. With all the other competing urgent needs in emergencies, humanitarian agencies are understandably anxious about adding research on such a complex, sensitive and, often trans-national issue to their list of priorities.human trafficking is often misunderstood or left unaddressed in emergencies. It is usually viewed as a pre-existing problem that is not a direct consequence of conflict or natural disaster, better left to law enforcement or social welfare services to address.Crisis conditions can also make it harder to discern whether trafficking is occurring based on international definitions, and what constitutes consent versus desperation as well as whose consent is being considered. If the Syrian parents of a teen-age daughter living in an overcrowded tent on the border – a structure without doors, let alone locks, in a highly precarious location – agree to an offer of marriage as a way to protect her, can it officially be defined as trafficking? Does that change if the daughter in question is 18 years of age and agrees to travel overseas?Aside from the damage early and/or forced marriage can inflict on a female’s physical, emotional and social well-being, how do we know if her new husband subjects her to sexual exploitation within or outside of the marriage? Where can she seek support?  In northern Syria, I asked a group of young, unmarried women where they or their friends would go for help if they experienced violence or exploitation. Many expressed frustration at the lack of services available to them. One woman told me, "Nobody will answer you if you talk."Internal Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, Borno state, northeast Nigeria, hosting families seeking refuge due the Boko Haram insurgencies. An estimated 2.4 million people have been internally displaced in Nigeria as a result of the Boko Haram conflict.Protection, Peace, Security, Justice: Operating at the intersectionsAddressing human trafficking deserves recognition as a life-saving activity that should be prioritized from the first stages of emergency response, according to formative research from IOM and Caritas France—the former spanning over twenty years of fieldwork and the latter focusing on conflict and post-conflict settings in the Euro-Mediterranean region. As several of the IOM researchers involved wrote, “…crises tend to exacerbate pre-existing exposure to risks, threats, abuse and exploitation, and introduce new risks and threats.” A recent statement by the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons highlights the risks not only during conflict, but also while fleeing (both in transit and host countries), and in post-conflict settings.Combatting trafficking in conflict is increasingly seen as a political necessity in global peace and security agendas, particularly in relation to sexual exploitation. Survivors such as Nadia Murad – who last December addressed the  UN Security Council prior to its unanimous adoption of Resolution 2331 on trafficking in armed conflict – are bringing visibility and voice to the issue. In a follow on meeting this spring, UN Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated to the Council that,“Human trafficking takes many forms. Women and girls in particular are targeted again and again and again. We see brutal sexual exploitation, including forced prostitution, forced marriage and sexual slavery.”In the run-up to last year’s World Humanitarian Summit, a range of actors increased their focus on trafficking specific to humanitarian settings. These included the UN’s main criminal justice body, the US and UK governments, universities, and international organizations including those advocating for the broader agenda of ending ‘modern slavery’. Caritas’ work underscores the role of faith-based organizations in working closely with community and religious leaders, as important intermediaries for both prevention and connecting those affected to services.While some trafficking is committed by highly organised criminal networks, the most common type of exploitation is at a lower level, involving fathers, mothers, husbands, extended family, acquaintances and neighbours.Yet many global initiatives remain at the level of policy and advocacy, with only tentative actions toward a more comprehensive humanitarian response, and survivors and frontline practitioners largely absent from global discussions. Attention to trafficking following natural disasters has been limited, as well as discussions of the potential unintended dangers posed by humanitarian and refugee responses in and of themselves, and by those closest to a survivor who may be making decisions that they believe put her further out of harm’s way. As ICMP’s groundbreaking study of trafficking in relation to the Syrian war notes:While some trafficking is committed by highly organised criminal networks, the most common type of exploitation is at a lower level, involving fathers, mothers, husbands, extended family, acquaintances and neighbours. The context of general vulnerability means that there are often factors that leave families with no viable alternative for survival other than situations that could be defined as exploitation and trafficking in national and international law.Workers gather paintings made by children participating in art therapy, in a child-friendly space, in Za’atari, a tented camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan. The space offers a safe place for children to participate in recreational activities and receive educational and psycho-social support.For this reason how aid agencies deliver assistance—and through whom it is channeled—are critical in determining whether power imbalances that can lead to exploitative situations are maintained, worsened, or reduced. Negative coping mechanisms (such as child marriage) and exploitation by individuals empowered through their connection to assistance (through distributions, for example) may be caused by the response to a crisis, rather than the crisis itself. The principle of ‘doing no harm’, or at least seeking to minimize or avoid exposing people to further harm as a result of one’s actions, is essential, as is avoiding adding to a long list of protection concerns that are unrealistic for any one actor or sector to address.Instead, we can improve upon the actions protection actors and the wider humanitarian community are already taking, so that we continuously strive to do the most good for those most in harm’s way. This is exactly what applied research in humanitarian settings seeks to do.The time for concerted action is nowResearch does not mean delaying action, but rather informing it. As efforts among humanitarian, security, human rights and justice actors to combat trafficking for sexual exploitation grow, it is timely to consider a coordinated research agenda around trafficking in emergencies.This could build on existing recommendations for research by the UN Special Rapporteur and on the knowledge accumulated through global violence prevention efforts—such as DFID’s What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls Programme, KnoW Violence in Childhood, Together for Girls, and the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children—and apply it to an intractable and often invisible form of violence that affects unknown numbers of women and children in crisis settings. Importantly, Sustainable Development Goals 5.2, 8.7 and 16.2 and their indicators have already sparked momentum to improve global estimates and better measure progress in ending trafficking as well as forced labour and modern slavery.A makeshift camp north of the Raqqa in the Syrian Arab Republic, Hiba, 12, and her family just arrived in Ain Issa camp from rural Raqqa. “I wasn’t scared on the way. I kept thinking that once we get here, I will be safe,” says Hiba. “I can read and write but with difficulty,” she adds, having lost four years of education.By coordinating the resources, knowledge and experience of different actors across the humanitarian sector, and partnering with key anti-trafficking actors outside of it, we could consolidate the evidence base on how human trafficking for sexual exploitation is exacerbated by conflict and natural disaster, what humanitarian actors are already doing to combat it, and which approaches best meet the needs of the children and women most at risk. In addition to those recently proposed at an ECOSOC Humanitarian Affairs Segment side event, potential framing questions could be:What is known about trafficking of women and children for purposes of sexual exploitation during humanitarian emergencies? (Mapping Patterns)How do the drivers of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation differ in emergencies vs non-emergency settings, and how are they the same?How do humanitarian responses put women and children more at risk of this type of trafficking?What mechanisms are in place to monitor this and trigger corrective action when needed?  (Do no/least harm)What is already being done about it, and how? (Emerging good practices)How can an understanding of drivers specific to humanitarian settings be used to adapt responses used to combat trafficking in non-emergency contexts?What (innovative) actions are already being taken in emergency contexts, and which show signs of promise?How are affected individuals and communities (including religious leaders) involved in efforts to better understand and address the issue? What ethical issues arise for those at-risk, as well as the researchers and practitioners involved?Importantly, we must take a critical look at how our response in emergencies may inadvertently act as a push or pull factor. The lack of safe sanitation facilities, shelter, employment opportunities, economic support for hard times, or information about how and where to access services can all lead people to make choices that put them at risk, and attract those who would exploit them. While the criminal element to human trafficking makes it tremendously difficult and potentially dangerous to address, the least we can do is start with ourselves.There is already a case for ensuring basic protection measures that prevent trafficking and sexual exploitation in emergencies. The time for taking a critical look at the efficacy of these measures, and expanding the tools and resources we have at our disposal, is now.In addition to the outstanding efforts highlighted above, we invite those currently engaged in research, programming and policy making to prevent and/or respond to trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation in emergencies to share your findings, burning questions, and future plans in the comment field below, or contact us directly. If there is a sufficiently strong response, we may consider facilitating a round-table discussion on the issue or joining with others already doing so.[1] Trafficking for labour exploitation is also of great concern, however here we focus specifically on trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation.Alina Potts is a research and evaluation specialist with UNICEF Innocenti. Explore the UNICEF Innocenti research catalogue for new publications. Follow UNICEF Innocenti on Twitter and sign up for e-newsletters on any page of the UNICEF Innocenti website.

Journal articles

‘Nobody will answer you if you talk’: The case for research on trafficking in emergencies
Journal Article

COVID-19: Reducing the risk of infection might increase the risk of intimate partner violence

‘Nobody will answer you if you talk’: The case for research on trafficking in emergencies
Journal Article

Disclosure, reporting and help seeking among child survivors of violence: a cross-country analysis

‘Nobody will answer you if you talk’: The case for research on trafficking in emergencies
Journal Article

Pandemics and Violence Against Women and Children

‘Nobody will answer you if you talk’: The case for research on trafficking in emergencies
Journal Article

Risk Factors for Childhood Violence and Polyvictimization: A Cross-Country Analysis from Three Regions