How to create livelihoods for displaced women

Violence against women and girls is a constant, grim reality around the globe. Up to six of 10 women suffer physical or sexual violence, or both, during their lifetimes — and it gets worse during humanitarian crises.

In times of war or natural disasters, displaced women often resort to harmful ways to provide for themselves and their families. These include engaging in sex trade, forcing their daughters to marry early, and selling goods on unsafe routes.

According to the Women’s Refugee Commission, women and girls fall victim to violence not only because of the social and cultural acceptance of inequality and discrimination against them but also of the everyday risks of harm when earning a living. So far, very few aid programs tackle these twin underlying causes of gender-based violence.

The Women’s Refugee Commission will host a July 25 webinar titled “Peril or Protection: Making Work Safe,” the title of a campaign which will launch that day on the organization’s website. The webinar will provide guidance to practitioners and aid groups on how to design economic and livelihood programs that can better protect women from harm, especially in crisis situations.

The webinar is based on “Preventing Gender-based Violence, Building Livelihoods,” which the commission produced with funding from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration and NoVo Foundation. The handbook features tools for project assessment, design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation, as well as organizational capacity building, based on promising practices around the globe. Click here to download this publication.

Sign up now to reserve your slot for this online event.