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The guidelines set out essential actions that humanitarian actors must take in order to effectively identify and respond to the needs and rights of persons with disabilities who are most at risk of being left behind in humanitarian settings. The recommended actions in each chapter place persons with disabilities at the centre of humanitarian action, both as actors and as members of affected populations. They are specific to persons with disabilities and to the context of humanitarian action and build on existing and more general standards and guidelines. These are the first humanitarian guidelines to be developed with and by persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in association with traditional humanitarian stakeholders. Based on the outcomes of a comprehensive global and regional multi-stakeholder consultation process, they are designed to promote the implementation of quality humanitarian programmes in all contexts and across all regions, and to establish and increase both the inclusion of persons with disabilities and their meaningful participation in all decisions that concern them. 

Chapters include:

• What to do - key approaches to programming
• Data and information management
• Partnerships and empowerment of organisation of people with disabilities
• Cross cutting considerations
• Accountability to affected people and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse
• Humanitarian response options
• Stakeholder roles and responsibilities
• What sectors need to do
• Camp coordination and camp management
• Education
• Food security and nutrition
• Livelihoods
• Health
• Protection
• Shelter and settlements
• Water, sanitation and hygiene

This report is based on 17 cases of sexual violence against women and girls with disabilities in eight Indian states. It comes five years after The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 (the 2013 amendments) were adopted in India. It follows Human Rights Watch’s November 2017 report “Everyone Blames Me”: Barriers to Justice and Support Services for Sexual Assault Survivors in India, which found that rape survivors still face significant barriers obtaining justice and critical support services because legal and other reforms have not been fully realised.

This report finds that while the 2013 amendments have made significant progress in responding to the widespread challenges that victims of sexual violence endure, they have yet to properly develop and implement support for survivors with disabilities in the form of trainings and reforms throughout the criminal justice system. It highlights gaps in enforcement and calls for concrete measures to address the needs of women and girls with disabilities seeking justice for abuse. 

The ideology of Emancipatory Disability Research (EDR) reflected in the phrase ‘Nothing about us without us’, was first put forward in the 1990s. Although it aimed to place research control in the hands of the ‘researched’, i.e., people with disability, this rarely happens even today, 25 years later.

The Community Action Research on Disability (CARD) programme in Uganda embraced and modified the EDR approach, recognising the need for including people with disability in the research process from concept to outcome, and nurturing participation and collaboration between all the stakeholders in achieving action-based research. The research teams always included people with disability and staff from Disability People’s Organisations (DPOs) as well as academics and service providers. It endeavoured to generate and carry out research around issues that mattered to people with disability and their families. Leadership roles were assigned by team members. The objectives of the CARD programme were: (1) to fund teams to carry out action-based research on disability in Uganda; (2) to develop research and administrative capacity to manage the initiative within the academic registrar’s office at Kyambogo University; (3) to incorporate new knowledge generated from the studies into the ongoing local community-based rehabilitation and special education courses; and, (4) to ensure wide dissemination of research findings to all stakeholder groups.

CARD ran for 5 years, commissioning 21 action research studies in the field of disability and community-based services. This paper describes the process, presents the 12 completed studies, examines the extent to which the objectives were achieved and evaluates the experiences of the participating research teams, particularly in relation to the inclusion of its members with disability. It concludes with recommendations for future initiatives designed to promote validity, good value and inclusive approaches in disability research.

"Violence against women and girls is one of the most systematic and widespread human rights violations. According to a 2013 global review of available data, 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. Eliminating such violence globally requires intensive efforts, which led world leaders to establish an online tool that increases opportunities to exchange experiences and strengthen knowledge to prevent and stop violence against women. The Global Database on Violence against Women provides easy access to comprehensive and up-to-date information on measures undertaken by United Nations Member States to address all forms of violence against women.

The Database is designed to:

• Provide easy access to comprehensive and up-to-date information on measures undertaken by Governments to address all forms of violence against women;
• Increase opportunities for exchange of experiences in addressing violence against women;
• Strengthen the knowledge-base for effective policy responses to prevent and address violence against women; and
• Encourage the further collection, availability, use and dissemination of data on violence against women, as well as analysis of such data"

This comprehensive user guide explains what the Gender-Based Violence Information Management System (GBVIMS) is, why it is important and how it works. It is also a training tool on how to use the GBVIMS and related tools through hands-on, self-learning activities. It is intended to be both a reference document and a training manual for both service providers with specific services in place for GBV survivors, such as case management or health services, and agencies or actors coordinating multisectoral GBV interventions within a humanitarian context. This could include local national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), state actors, community-based organizations (CBOs) and/or UN agencies operating within a humanitarian context
Note: free registration is required to access the guide
Note: the guide is available as one document, or as individual chapters and annexes. A workbook is also available

This document builds on previous WHO publications and explores the different reasons for collecting information about sexual violence in emergency situations. It applies to all forms of enquiry about sexual violence and makes a number of recommendations that are intended to ensure that the necessary safety and ethical safeguards are in place at the beginning of any information gathering exercise. The document sets out the key safety and ethical issues that need to be addressed and the questions that need to be asked. There are examples of good practice and details of further information and resources that are available. This document is not intended to be a standalone guidance document but is designed to complement existing internationally-agreed ethical guidelines for research and to inform ethics review processes