The Position:
The Programme Specialist-GBViE shall be based in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Under the overall guidance of UNFPA Representative, the incumbent will directly report to the Head of Sub-Office, Cox’s Bazar, and is guided by the Deputy Representative in Dhaka with close liaison with Chief of Gender, Dhaka.
How you can make a difference:
UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s new strategic plan (2018-2021), focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices.
In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.
UNFPA is seeking candidates that transform, inspire and deliver high impact and sustained results; we need staff who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them and who commit to deliver excellence in programme results.
Job Purpose:
Bangladesh is ranked as the sixth in the World Risk Index (2015), indicating the country’s extreme exposure and high vulnerability to natural hazards even when Bangladesh has not experienced any Level 3 disaster in past years. In humanitarian settings, women and girls are disproportionately affected. In the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh for instance, 90% of the deaths were among women. If law and order break down in an emergency situation, or social support and safety systems (such as extended family or community groups) fail, women and girls are also at greater risk of gender-based violence (GBV), gender-based discrimination, and harmful practices including forced or child marriage. According to the 2015 Violence against Women (VAW) Survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Bangladesh has an extremely high prevalence of VAW with 72.6% of married women experiencing some form of violence by their husbands, 49.6% experiencing physical violence and 27.3% sexual violence. This shows that women and girls are already at risk of GBV in normal times - emergencies make their vulnerability even bigger, while a collection of data on GBV in humanitarian settings remains a challenge. Against this backdrop, the new 7th Five Year Plan of the government of Bangladesh mentions the vulnerability of Women as one of the priority areas in disaster management.
UNFPA is the lead agency for GBV in the UN Country Team in Bangladesh and the prevention and mitigation of GBV remain as one of the priority areas for UNFPA’s current 9th Country Programme for Bangladesh (2017-2020). Guided by the principles for the global Cluster Approach and drawing upon the previous natural disaster experiences in the country, UNFPA has established a “Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Cluster” under the national humanitarian architecture in Bangladesh, co-chaired by MoWCA and UNFPA in November 2016. UNFPA is also leading the GBV Sector under Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG) since May 2017 in Cox’s Bazar. The GBV Cluster at the national level and GBV Sub-sector in Cox’s Bazar are now contributing to a more coherent, comprehensive and coordinated approach to GBV in humanitarian settings in the country, including prevention, care, support, recovery, and efforts to hold the perpetrators accountable. UNFPA is currently the technical lead of Women Friendly Spaces (WFS), Referral Pathway and Dignity Kits (DK) apart from its regular prevention and response interventions.
In August 2017, there was an influx of Rohingya refugees from Rakhine, Myamar into Cox Bazar district, Bangladesh. Currently, we have a total of 1.2 million affected persons (refugees and host communities). More than half of these new arrivals are women and girls. Refugees, especially women and girls are being disproportionately affected by forms and patterns of GBV including rape, conflict-related sexual violence, intimate partner violence, sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, child and forced marriages, sexual exploitation, survival sex, and forced engagement in drug and sex trade. This sudden population influx has added to difficulty and challenge for the Rohingya population especially women and girls to access to SRH and GBV services including psychosocial support. Therefore, the humanitarian actors are scaling up their operations in Cox’s Bazar district, and UNFPA is also in need of providing additional support to deal with GBV issues, as many of the refugees have experienced serious GBV; for instance, many women and girls were gang-raped and are in desperate need of immediate medical/psychosocial support.
Requirements:
Qualifications and Experience
Education:
• Advanced degree (Master’s degree) with a specialization in areas such as social work, public health, gender, law/human rights, international relations, and/or other related social science disciplines.
Knowledge and Experience:
• At least 7 years specialized experience in GBV Programming at the international level; minimum 2 of which in the humanitarian context.
• Experience in coordination and liaison with government counterparts and other stakeholders, including NGOs and communities
• Demonstrated leadership and management experience within a multinational and multicultural environment.
• Excellent understanding of human rights-based and participatory approach.
• Proved experience in survivors-centered approach
• Experience in capacity development/training.
• Practical experience in GBV case management and referral
• Experience in developing SOPs, guidelines, tools for GBViE response and prevention interventions.
• Direct experience providing support to GBV survivors an asset.
• Proven communications and inter-personal skills, IT literacy, as well as organizational skills and time-management
• Good understanding of international GBV best practices and guidelines
• Experience of working at a global or regional level especially in the developing countries.
• Experience providing direct services to GBV survivors
Languages:
Fluency in English; knowledge of other official UN languages
We are no longer accepting applications for this position.
