The Position:
The Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Sub-Sector Coordinator will be based in Cox’s Bazar. He/she reports to the Head of Sub-Office in UNFPA Sub-office in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
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 sixth in the World Risk Index (2015), due to the country's extreme exposure and high vulnerability to natural hazards. Within humanitarian settings, and particularly in Bangladesh, women and girls are disproportionately affected. According to the Violence Against Women (VAW) Survey conducted in 2015 by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Bangladesh has a very high prevalence of violence against women. Findings from this survey report that shows 72.6% of married women experienced some form of violence by their husbands, 49.6% experienced physical violence and 27% experienced sexual violence. This data shows the magnitude of risks that women and girls are facing against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in a normal setting. Humanitarian settings make their vulnerability to GBV even greater. In emergency situations, if law and order structures break down or social support and safety systems (such as extended family or community groups) fail, women and girls are at greater risk of GBV, gender-based discrimination, and harmful practices including forced or child marriage. Against this backdrop, the new 7th Five-Year Plan of the Government of Bangladesh highlights the vulnerability of women as one of the priority areas in disaster management.
Since August 2017, targeted violence against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State, Myanmar has forced over 728,000 people to flee into Bangladesh. More than half these new arrivals are women and girls. Refugees, especially women and girls are being disproportionately affected by 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 the drug and sex trades. Before being forced to flee, communities living in Rakhine state had already been exposed for decades to numerous daily stressors, with repeated exposure to potentially traumatic events.
This situation has further been worsened with the entry of COVID19 pandemic where movement is restricted, people and protection systems weakened; women and girls are at a greater risk of experiencing gender based violence and the threat of harmful practices including forces marries are further heightened.
UNFPA is leading the GBV Sub-Sector coordination in Cox’s Bazar, which comprises more than 30 member organizations including UN, INGO, NGO and government agencies operating in the Rohingya refugee camps and the surrounding affected host community locations. The GBV Sub-Sector works alongside the Child Protection Sub-Sector (led by UNICEF) within the Protection Sector (led by UNHCR).
Under the overall supervision of the Head of Sub-Office in Cox’s Bazar, the GBV Sub-Cluster Coordinator will fill the technical GBViE demand of the GBV Sub-Cluster at Cox’s Bazar level. The Sub-Sector also works with other humanitarian sectors within the Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG). The Sub-Sector coordinates the GBV prevention and response through strengthening community-based GBV programming. These include ensuring access to quality multi-sector GBV response services for survivors, building the capacity of GBV service providers and other stakeholders in order to deliver quality care in line with best practices and minimum standards for humanitarian settings, and enabling active participation of affected communities in GBV awareness-raising, response, prevention and risk mitigation.
Requirements:
Qualifications and Experience
Education:
Advanced University degree with specialization in areas such as gender studies, humanitarian affairs, human rights, law, social work, public health, development studies, international relations, and/or other related social science disciplines.
Knowledge and Experience:
• 7 years of experience working on gender-based violence, of which 3 years are at the international level, preferably in a humanitarian context.
• Experience leading inter-agency coordination mechanisms with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Demonstrable knowledge of the critical components to facilitate effective inter-agency coordination.
• Awareness and demonstrable knowledge of how GBV manifests in humanitarian settings and ability to describe context-specific prevention and response actions.
• Demonstrable knowledge of humanitarian emergency operations, including the Cluster System and HPC, and roles/responsibilities of key humanitarian actors.
• Experience designing and managing GBV programmes in an NGO (recommended).
• Ability to self-manage, emotional intelligence, empathy, team spirit, conflict management as well as negotiating skills.
Languages:
Fluency in English; knowledge of other official UN languages is preferable.
We are no longer accepting applications for this position.
