Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA)

From the outset of the emergency, UNHCR and its partners must establish mechanisms that prevent and respond to sexual exploitation or abuse and mitigate risks thereof. In accordance with the UNHCR Policy on Addressing Sexual Misconduct, concerns or suspicions of SEA committed by fellow workers, including UNHCR personnel, partners, contractors, suppliers, government officials, and community workers and volunteers, must be reported immediately to the Inspector General's Office (IGO). UNHCR personnel are encouraged to report suspected SEA directly to the IGO, which can be reached directly at [email protected], or via the IGO online complaint form. Additionally, reports can also be made through the PSEA focal point, a manager at UNHCR, or the SpeakUp! Helpline (accessible to UNHCR staff only), all of whom have the duty to report it to the IGO. For more information on reporting SEA, refer to Reporting Misconduct (here). Support and assistance must be provided to victims of SEA, in line with a victim-centred approach as outlined in UNHCR's Victim-Centred Approach Policy.

In an emergency context, systems and structures (such as an interagency PSEA network, or safe and accessible feedback and response systems through which SEA can be reported) may not be present and may need to be established. New staff and partners recruited for the emergency may not be adequately trained on PSEA or lack the required policies and systems for PSEA (for partners). 

It is critical that all related actions, processes and procedures adopt a victim-centred approach, which is defined in UNHCR's Victim-Centred Approach Policy as "a way of engaging with victim(s) that prioritizes listening to the victim(s), avoids re-traumatization, and systematically focuses on their safety, rights, well-being, expressed needs and choices, thereby giving back as much control to victim(s) as feasible and ensuring the empathetic and sensitive delivery of services and accompaniment in a non-judgmental manner". The Policy outlines key principles that should guide all aspects of UNHCR's approach to SEA prevention, risk mitigation and response.

Steps to be taken

From the moment of arrival, and throughout their work at a duty station, senior managers and other personnel must take action to prevent and mitigate risks of SEA. If it does occur, ensure that it is reported and provide victims with support and assistance and eliminate the risk of its recurrence. The following are key steps that must be followed in an emergency response:

• Recruitment: Ensure that all newly recruited local staff and members of the affiliate workforce are cleared by the UN Clear Check database before they are issued a contract or letter of offer. Make sure that all staff have signed the Code of Conduct declaration and have completed the mandatory e-learning course on PSEA available on Workday. Non-UN partners can make use of the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme for vetting to prevent perpetrators of sexual misconduct from moving between organisations.
• Capacity-building and Awareness-raising: Train and equip all personnel, partners and other stakeholders in PSEA and take specific steps to prevent it. For example, ensure that all personnel have completed mandatory PSEA training, discuss PSEA action plans in office meetings, meet with government officials to discuss prevention, organize capacity-building sessions with staff, partners, authorities, contractors, and other actors involved in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, etc. Ensure that all people involved in project activities (e.g. warehouse & distribution workers, cash assistance, enumerators, community mobilisers, incentive workers), in particular those who come into contact with forcibly displaced persons, have received PSEA training, signed the Code of Conduct (see, for example, Code of Conduct used for service providers involved in the delivery of cash assistance, accessible to UNHCR staff only), and understand what SEA is and how to report it. Please refer to "Learning and Resources" under the PSEA/SH Intranet page (accessible to UNHCR staff only) to access learning tools and materials for use by UNHCR personnel and partners, as well as section 5 "Learning and Field Practices" below.
• Focal points: Ensure a PSEA focal point (accessible to UNHCR staff only) and an alternate are appointed by the Representative. For large operations, focal points and alternates may be appointed at the national level and in each office.
• Coordination: Ensure that an inter-agency PSEA network is in place to ensure effective coordination on PSEA amongst all partners in the response for SEA prevention, risk mitigation and response. In a refugee response, UNHCR should take the lead in establishing (where it does not exist already) and (co-)coordinating the PSEA network in close collaboration with partners, local authorities and affected communities. In IDP situations, UNHCR should jointly work with other agencies for the establishment and operationalization of a PSEA Network, and actively participate in or co-lead the Network as appropriate. See also entry on Coordination on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA), UNHCR’s Policy on Emergency Preparedness and Response, PSEA: A Collective Responsibility, and for refugee responses the updated Guidance on the Refugee Coordination Model.
• Assessment and Mitigation of Risks: In collaboration with stakeholders, including affected communities, assess and map potential risk areas by sector and discuss actions that can prevent and reduce the risks of SEA. Integrate SEA prevention, risk mitigation and response into protection analysis and multi-sectoral programming. A risk management tool to assist field operations in ensuring that possible SEA risks are adequately identified and analysed and relevant treatments are thoroughly considered is available here (accessible to UNHCR staff only). Inter-agency resources for SEA risk assessment and mitigation are also available, including: IOM’s Inter-agency Risk Assessment on SEA (IARA) Toolkit, UNHCR & WFP Toolkit on Mitigating the Risk of Abuse in the Use of Cash, and Empowered Aid – Tip sheets for SEA Risk Mitigation and other Empowered Aid tools and resources.
• Community Engagement and Awareness-raising: Strengthen community engagement and awareness-raising. Critical activities include systematically integrating PSEA messages in information campaigns and disseminating information related to PSEA through diverse channels that are adapted to community preferences and the local context and are accessible to women, men, girls and boys of diverse backgrounds. To prevent SEA effectively, UNHCR has the responsibility to ensure that forcibly displaced persons know their rights and entitlements, including that all humanitarian assistance and services are free, that they should never be expected to provide any form of sexual favor, and that demands for such favors are strictly prohibited. UNHCR should also ensure that community members know how and where to report SEA incidents safely and confidentially when they occur, and how and where victims of SEA can access multi- sectoral support and assistance. The CDAC Network Message Library: PSEA  has simple messages on PSEA that can be adapted and used in different contexts, with the intention to help actors to make a quick start on communicating with communities while further developing mechanisms for ongoing dialogue with diverse groups within each community. Other resources include the materials developed with support from the UNHCR/ICVA PSEA Community Outreach and Communication Fund (available on the deliverables database here), as well as simplified communication materials developed by WFP and IOM in partnership with Translators without Borders under the PSEA at the Frontline: Together We Say No initiative.
• Feedback and response mechanisms: Collaborate with Accountability to Affected People (AAP) working group / actors on the ground to map existing feedback and response mechanisms that can safely and confidentially receive complaints related to SEA from communities and partners and design and establish feedback mechanisms to fill gaps if required. In particular, identify and support feedback channels that are preferred by communities and ensure that the design of any new mechanisms are informed by community feedback. Ensure that feedback mechanisms are sensitive to age, gender and diversity (AGD) and accessible to women, children, persons with disabilities, older persons, minority groups, and others at heightened risk. To enhance accessibility for diverse groups, it is recommended to have multiple channels and options for reporting. Due to the sensitive nature of SEA, confidentiality needs to be a primary consideration in the establishment and running of feedback mechanisms.  All personnel staffing feedback mechanisms must be trained to fully understand the definition of SEA and able to identify situations where there are any suspicions or concerns related to SEA and know the procedures to immediately refer individuals to support services and to report SEA allegations to the IGO. It is also critical that feedback and response mechanisms are linked with an effective interagency referral mechanism so that a complaint made by community members through any feedback mechanism can then be promptly referred for assistance based on the victim’s consent and to the appropriate entity whose personnel is implicated as the potential perpetrator.
• Survivor / Victim Assistance: Work with the GBV and child protection sub-sector / cluster to ensure that existing response services have been mapped and that survivors of SEA can access the multi-sectoral support that they require through existing GBV and child protection referral pathways, in line with a survivor/ victim-centred approach, GBV Guiding Principles, and the best interests principle in the case of children. Support available includes GBV case management / child protection case management / Best Interests Procedure and other psychosocial services, medical assistance (including clinical management of rape), safety services (including police, safe shelters as well as appropriate alternative care for child survivor) and legal services. Support can also include cash or in- kind assistance as well as economic empowerment interventions. Ensure collaboration with relevant coordination structures and actors, including GBV and child protection, which are to take the lead in mapping services under their respective areas of responsibility and liaising with PSEA Focal Points to ensure SEA considerations and specificities are duly incorporated into their SOPs and ways of working. PSEA focal points must be trained on GBV safe disclosure (GBV coordinators / focal points to support).
• Partner Capacity Assessment and capacity-strengthening implementation plan: Assess PSEA capacity of prospective funded partners that are engaged in the emergency response, in accordance with the UN Protocol on Allegations of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse involving Implementing Partners (UN Protocol, April 2018) and the Administrative Instruction on Procedures on Partnership Management (accessible to UNHCR staff only). All assessments are carried out using the PSEA Module on the UNPartner Portal (UNPP). Under the UNHCR Policy on Emergency Preparedness and Response paragraph 8.17, when an emergency has been declared, the PSEA capacity assessment for new partners should be completed as soon as possible and no later than three months after signing the partnership agreement. If a UNHCR Office finds that a prospective partner lacks satisfactory PSEA capacity (with low or medium capacity), it must justify the decision to select that partner and establish, together with the partner, a capacity strengthening implementation plan (CSIP) that builds the partner's capacity appropriately, monitor its performance in the course of programme activities, and manage associated risks. The implementation of the plan must be continuously monitored, and the capacity of partners with CSIP in place are eventually re-assessed. Irrespective of their level of capacity, partners are monitored regularly for measures they take to mitigate risks of and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse. Please refer to the Procedures and the Programme Handbook (PLAN – Section 9, and GET – Sections 2 and 4), as well the relevant repository items for further details about the partners’ PSEA capacity assessment process and useful resources (accessible to UNHCR staff only). In addition, the UNPP (IP Protocol for PSEA Resources) has useful resources that can be helpful for partners as well as the UN staff when conducting the assessment.
• Reporting: Report allegations of SEA without delay. Personnel who have concerns or suspicions that SEA is occurring have an obligation to bring such information immediately to the attention of the IGO, in accordance with the UNHCR Policy on Addressing Sexual Misconduct. Staff should not investigate SEA allegations themselves, because to do so might compromise confidentiality, put victims and witnesses at risk, disrupt due process and negatively impact the integrity of the investigation process. Personnel who report a complaint to the IGO or who cooperate in an IGO investigation are protected from any form of retaliation under UNHCR's Administrative Instruction on Protection against Retaliation (UNHCR/AI/2018/10/Rev.1) (accessible to UNHCR staff only).

Related UNHCR management system(s)

The Office of the Principal Advisor (PSEA/SH) leads and coordinates UNHCR's work on SEA and SH. In case you have questions or need support on PSEA and SH, please reach out to the PSEA/SH team at: [email protected].