United Nations - IOM last week launched the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Best Practice Guide on Inter-Agency Community-Based Complaint Mechanisms to protect against sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers.

IOM Director General William Lacy Swing took part in the event at the UN HQ in New York as the IASC Champion for Protection against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, alongside partners from the European Union, Save the Children, UNHCR and the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

He noted that the humanitarian community has taken positive steps towards preventing and addressing sexual exploitation and abuse of people receiving aid. This includes an IASC project to address the need for guidance on creating inter-agency complaint mechanisms in humanitarian settings that are safe, efficient, and sustainable.

In close cooperation with UNHCR and Save the Children, IOM coordinated the pilot project on behalf of the IASC to establish community-based complaint mechanisms in Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The project was carried out with the support of the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien and was a key objective of the IASC Task Team on Accountability to Affected Populations and Protection from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation in 2014-15.

The lessons learned from these pilots were used to develop a Best Practice Guide and Global Standard Operating Procedures, which were endorsed by the IASC principals in June 2016.

“While we were all committed to the issue, but we did not have the tools to help people particularly in the field. These tools represent the first institutionalization of protection from sexual exploitation and abuse within the UN system. Sexual exploitation and abuse is going to continue to occur, and we need to make sure we’ve done everything humanly possible to protect beneficiaries, to protect the integrity of the institution, and to allow us to complete our mandate,” said Ambassador Swing.

“These documents will serve as powerful tools to assist Humanitarian Coordinators and Humanitarian Country Team members to set up much needed sexual abuse and exploitation prevention and response systems in humanitarian settings,” he added.

UNHCR Senior Policy Advisor Andrew Painter noted the important gap filled by these tools from a field perspective. “This Guide is going to be incredibly useful, because it actually gives practical – but principled – advice to colleagues. Victims or survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse can find the protection they need – legal and psychosocial – with a sense of safety and confidentiality and with their consent,” he said.

Panellists emphasized that sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers undermines the integrity of humanitarian work, inflicting significant harm on people when they are at their most vulnerable. And that eradicating such acts represents a critical element of accountability to affected people.

IRC Director of Ethics Luc Ferran noted that every agency is at risk of perpetrating sexual exploitation and abuse. “We know that beneficiaries don’t necessarily distinguish between agencies when they are receiving assistance and don’t know who to report it to. So reporting to a common mechanism – the referral on reports between agencies – is all-important for taking action.”

European Union Counsellor and Head of Humanitarian Affairs Section Eduardo Fernandez-Zinke said: “With the launch of these two documents, we now have the tools to put in place collective accountability measures. The next step is to actually do it.”

You can watch the launch event here. The best practice is available on the IASC website here.

For further information, please contact Olivia Headon at IOM New York, Tel. +1 917 574 1676, Email: oheadon@iom.int.