Gender Based Violence, Help in Pakistan Floods :Recognize Issues then plan for action.

The GBV Sub-cluster aims to address both immediate humanitarian service delivery needs and action to prevent and respond to GBV, as well as longer-term development of services, systems, and structures to protect the affected population from GBV, with an emphasis on addressing the needs of women and girls. The Sub-cluster hopes to institutionalize existing GBV mechanisms, enhance them with global good practice, and help take them to scale.

In line with the global mission of the Protection Cluster, the Pakistan GBV Sub-cluster will facilitate a more predictable, accountable and effective protection response to GBV in the Pakistan Floods disaster response.

Gender-based violence is understood to encompass a range of harmful acts which are based on socially-ascribed gender differences. The different forms of GBV that may arise in the current context in Pakistan may include, but are not limited to: 

•       Physical violence: an act of physical violence that is not sexual in nature.  Examples include battering by husbands, mothers-in-law, etc., hitting, slapping, choking, cutting, shoving, burning, shooting or use of any weapons, acid attacks or any other act that results in pain, discomfort or injury.

•       Sexual violence: any form of non-consensual sexual contact.  Examples include rape (including in the context of marriage), sexual exploitation, forced prostitution and inappropriate touching.

•       Denial of resources, opportunities or services: denial of rightful access to economic resources/assets or livelihood opportunities, education, health or other social services. Examples include actors denying a woman humanitarian aid due to her gender, a widow prevented from receiving an inheritance or inheriting her husband’s land, earnings forcibly taken by a husband or other family member, a woman prevented from using contraceptives, a girl prevented from attending school, etc.  

•       Psychological/emotional abuse: infliction of mental or emotional pain or injury. Examples include: threats of physical or sexual violence, intimidation, humiliation, forced isolation, stalking, harassment, unwanted attention, remarks, gestures or written words of a sexual and/or menacing nature, destruction of cherished things, etc.

•       Forced and early marriage

•       Trafficking and abduction of women and girls

•       Harmful traditional practices such as honour killings