CARE has been implementing development and humanitarian programmes to address GBV. A Comprehensive Approach to Addressing GBViE – CARE has already developed a four-step approach to promote gender equality and women’s voice in the humanitarian action:

Rapid Gender Analysis: Using CARE’s RGA Toolkit, analyse the different needs and capacities of women, men, boys and girls during a                     humanitarian response, including their specific experiences of, coping strategies and response needs for gender-based violence (GBV)

Minimum Standards/Commitments: With reference to CARE’s ‘Minimum Commitments’  and the IASC GBV Guidelines, mainstream                         gender and GBV mitigation in all response sectors.

Women Lead in Emergencies: Ensure women’s voices count in planning and decision-makingYour Content Goes Here.

Life Free From Violence: Prevent, mitigate and respond to GBV, including domestic violence, in humanitarian crises.

Within the strategic objective and work on Life Free from Violence, CARE has four key intervention models to address GBViE. These are in line with existing organisational expertise and knowledge:

Provide adequate and appropriate gender-sensitive sexual and reproductive health services

Work with communities to shift patriarchal social norms and address the root causes, exacerbating factors and impacts of GBV in                             crisis contexts

The establishment of Safe Spaces for Women and Girls (SSWG)

The establishment of Safe Spaces for Women and Girls (SSWG) has emerged as a key strategy for supporting the protection and empowerment of crisis-affected women and girls. A safe space is a place where women and girls feel physically and emotionally safe, free of violence (or fear of violence) or abuse; free to express themselves without fear of judgment or harm; and able to mobilise and find their voice and the space/forums to raise it. The key objective of SSWGs is to provide a space and platform where women and girls can:

Receive social support

Acquire contextually relevant skills

Access safe multi-sectorial GBV response services (psychosocial, legal and medical)

Receive information on and referrals to women’s health services

Working closely with gender/GBV/protection, shelter/site planning and WASH colleagues and based on standards developed by the sector, CARE commits to establishing and operating SSWGs in emergency contexts as a central intervention of its overall GBViE model.

Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) Services

Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) Services -One of CARE’s core sector areas is SRH and the organisation has established considerable skills, experience and reputation in this area. Because most forms of GBV lead to health and psychosocial outcomes, the CARE SRHR outcome area has developed expertise in ensuring women and girls can access clinical services, i.e. the clinical management of rape (CMR), as well as psychosocial support (PSS). The SRHR team has expertise in building skills of healthcare providers in CMR and PSS using international standards; training community volunteers to increase awareness, identify and refer cases and provide PSS to those in need; and collecting and analysing data collected to make programmatic decision that are appropriate for communities we serve. CI Laos seeks to enhance more deliberate and systematic linkages between SRHiE and GBViE in practice and policy.

Change Patriarchal Social Norms

Working with communities to change patriarchal social norms and address the root causes, exacerbating factors and impacts of GBV in crisis contexts – CARE recognises the interlinking structural (e.g. discriminatory legal and institutional frameworks) and social factors (e.g. harmful social and gender norms), material realities (e.g. household poverty and lack of economic opportunities) and individual factors (such as inequitable gender attitudes condoning GBV, as well as individuals’ agency and aspirations) that prevent change in patriarchal social norms from occurring. CARE’s strategy is to work with crisis-affected communities to design and implement interventions and strategies that address the most relevant factors in any given context.

Engaging men and boys (EMB)

Engaging men and boys (EMB) – CARE recognises that women and girls are most often the targets of GBV, which is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men, thus justifying CARE’s approach to work with men and boys to mitigate this violence. CARE believes that it is critical to discuss issues around masculinity, including challenging aggressive stereotypes of masculinity. CARE will take measures to engage men and boys in GBV awareness and behaviour-changing initiatives and ensure that GBV prevention work also seeks to educate men and boys on the benefits to them, their households and communities of gender equality, dignity and respect for women.

As well as the four “intervention models”, CARE supports advocacy on policies, plans and programmes at the international and regional levels and, at the national level, ensures adequate GBV response in Humanitarian Response Plans and/or national response strategies. This is a synergy with the EMB intervention model and the Women Lead in Emergencies work under the CARE GiE approach.