Countries: Bangladesh, South Sudan Sector: WASH At the onset of the Rohingya response, WASH specialists worked quickly to construct latrines and bathing facilities for the refugees coming into Bangladesh from Myanmar. Safety audits by GBV actors, community feedback mechanisms, and a combination of focus group discussions and key informant interviews from both WASH and GBV actors were conducted to monitor GBV risk. As part of this dedicated effort to solicit feedback, humanitarian responders learned that many women were in fact not using these facilities. Based on this information, WASH, GBV, and camp management specialists jointly conducted new surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews specifically with women and girls to better understand any concerns about WASH facilities. In one camp, this research uncovered a surprising unintended outcome of the WASH design: as a standard GBV risk-mitigation measure, WASH specialists had installed lamp posts near the latrines so that they were well-lit at night. However, women reported that this extra light helped make latrines more accessible to them at night, but also led boys and men to gather around the latrines to complete their homework or play cards in the evening. Overall, the placement of the lights resulted in women reporting they actually felt less safe in the area and ultimately avoided using these latrines Similar findings been reported in multiple humanitarian settings, including in Malakal camp in South Sudan, where lighting around latrines was identified as a crucial intervention by women and girls. Consultations with women and girls as part of the monitoring process helped identify some unintended consequences of the additional lighting in this setting. Men congregated near the well-lit latrines, which resulted in community leaders banning women from the facilities after dark which further limited their access to WASH facilities. Some women also voiced concern that lighting could potentially make vulnerable individuals more visible and an easier target [9]. While lighting around WASH facilities remains a basic intervention for reducing GBV risks, particularly in displacement camps or other camp-like setting with communal WASH facilities, these examples illustrate how placing lights only around WASH facilities—and nowhere else in the camp—can create the result in the opposite of the intended effect. Both IDIs as well as the literature highlighted the importance of using community-based approaches with direct engagement of women and girls to ensure that interventions are appropriate for the situation and context and to understand the actual effects of the interventions Humanitarian teams used the feedback in the Rohingya response to improve the lighting intervention and mitigate the GBV risks that were identified in several ways. Latrines and bathing areas were assigned to a cluster of houses so that community members did not have to walk as far and could coordinate with their neighbors and set schedules for using the facilities. Another proposed solution has been to provide personal solar lamps to women and girls to take with them when they access WASH facilities at night |
Key take aways: Develop participatory monitoring mechanisms in collaboration with GBV specialists to identify GBV risks and allow women and girls to recommend solutions. Continue monitoring after the implementation of GBV risk mitigation actions to ensure the interventions are having the desired affects and to identify unintended outcomes, then feed learning back into programming. Engagement with women and girls should be ongoing throughout all phases of the project |