The impacts of safe spaces on networks creation and gender-based violence among conflict-affected displaced women
One in every three women worldwide has experienced gender-based violence (GBV) in her lifetime. GBV has critical adverse effects on women's physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive well-being (WHO, 2021) and contributes to women becoming economically dependent on their partners and families. GBV increases during times of conflict, and during displacement, this problem escalates.Cash transfer, economic empowerment, and microfinance programs targeting displaced women escaping from conflicts and general violence have been extensively introduced to mitigate the impacts of displacement (Özler et al., 2021; Taberra, 2016). Social resources - such as networks - are vital and long-lasting assets to recover from the adverse social and economic effects of displacement. However, interventions designed to create displaced women and girls’ social networks are still underexplored, and the impacts of social networks on GBV are unknown. Our study relates to two main priorities:
- Protection. How can protection activities (i.e., the creation of networks in safe spaces) prevent the incidence of sexual, physical, and psychological harm against women who have been forced to flee their homes as a result of or to avoid the effects of conflict?
- Mitigation. Social networks are social assets that persist over time and can facilitate displaced women's lives. Furthermore, networks can act as potential pathways to ensure more lasting economic outcomes. We will evaluate how an intervention can support displaced women in coping with the erosion of their social networks and mitigating GBV's psychological and socioeconomic welfare consequences after it has occurred.