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Efforts to respond to VAWG largely focus on providing formal services and reporting mechanisms for survivors. However, it is important to remember that in many contexts, survivors face multiple and complex barriers to reporting violence and accessing and using formal services. These include practical, social or personal factors which lead survivors to decide not to access services even when available. This is particularly the case for survivors who are often socially excluded such as those with disabilities, adolescent girls and members of the LGBTQI+ community, who may face multiple…

Women and Girls’ Safe Spaces are environments established to ensure women and girls feel emotionally and physically safe. These spaces are designed to ensure survivors of violence - and those at risk of violence - have a place to go where they are able to socialise, build support networks, access response services and access information on women’s rights, health and services, without fear of judgement or harm. These spaces provide a unique opportunity for women or girls to come together in contexts where most public spaces are dominated by men. Some safe spaces may specifically not allow men…

One Stop Centres are designed to provide holistic, integrated, multi-sectoral services for survivors of VAWG either in one location or through a network of service providers clustered in a locality. The aim of One Stop Centres is to increase survivor safety and wellbeing and improve perpetrator accountability, through the coordinated provision of services (medical, legal, social, psychosocial).

There are four key models of One Stop Centres: 

Hospital-based One Stop Centres that provide tertiary care 
Health facility-based One Stop Centres run by NGOs 
Stand-alone One Stop Centres …

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a grave human rights violation. Enshrining and upholding the right of survivors to safely access justice for crimes committed against them is a core responsibility of states and international actors. At the same time, it is important to understand how survivors themselves define justice, the realities of informal and formal, civil and criminal justice systems available in different contexts and the risks a survivor might face in accessing different forms of justice. When it comes to access to justice programming, it can be useful to distinguish…

The aim of policing is to provide safety and security for local communities, including women and girls at risk of or experiencing gender-based violence. The police can help to make communities safer places for women and girls through helping to end the culture of impunity around VAWG. This includes communicating and demonstrating the seriousness of VAWG, investigating and referring cases for prosecution, arresting and questioning suspected perpetrators, and providing a supportive environment for survivors to report violence. However, in most countries VAWG survivors rarely report to the police…

When designing a VAWG response programme or setting up a referral mechanism, teams must identify which services already exist, the extent to which they are functioning and how accessible they are to diverse survivors. This is so new programmes can focus on filling gaps or strengthening areas of weakness, rather than duplicating existing services. It is also important for ensuring that new prevention programmes know where to refer survivors if they need support. 

The scope of a service mapping will depend on the size of the focus area, the availability of existing services, and the resources…

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) results in multiple negative consequences on women’s and girls’ mental health and well-being. For this reason, survivors of VAWG may require acute and, at times, long-term, mental health care. Therefore, prioritising mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSS) in VAWG response is crucial to ensure that survivors receive a comprehensive and quality response package that meets their needs. Women and girls experiencing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination are often disproportionately at risk of violence, and of experiencing mental…

There are a number of contexts and situations in which regular static VAWG response services are not easily accessible to women and girl survivors. This might include remote or hard-to-reach locations, situations of displacement or locations affected by natural disasters, conflict or other emergencies like the Covid-19 pandemic. Over time, service providers have developed alternative options to provide some form of service to survivors. Remote services involve staff using technology to provide GBV services from a distance, while mobile services bring services directly to people who are…

Health services are often the first – and sometimes only – point of contact for survivors of violence. Survivors need access to comprehensive health services, which may include urgent medical treatment, emergency contraception, prophylaxis for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, mental health care, forensic evidence collection, and legal support. Some of these services are critical and time-sensitive, for example in instances of sexual assault and/or rape, emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy is effective within 120 hours, and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) medication to prevent…

Survivors of VAWG need access to appropriate services to meet their needs for medical and psychosocial care, shelter and safety, and access to justice and financial assistance. Depending on the types of violence they have suffered, how acute these respective needs, and policies in place they may need to access services in slightly different sequences. This process is known as a referral, with referral mechanisms (also termed referral pathways) providing a structured framework for guiding survivors of GBV to the appropriate care. Referral processes should incorporate standards to ensure the…