Whether you are interested in learning more, responding to an emergency, or looking to strengthen existing work, you'll find practical guidance, tools, and support here.
The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is united in its commitment to address SGBV. This commitment guides our approach and ensures we work together to uphold standards and collective responsibilities with shared principles.
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) refers to harmful acts directed against individuals based on their gender, sex or socially ascribed gender roles. As illustrated in this image, SGBV encompasses a wide range of abuses — including sexual violence, domestic violence, harmful practices and exploitation — which often overlap and are rooted in unequal power relations and discriminatory social norms.
Sexual and gender-based violence occurs all the time, everywhere. Around the world at least one woman in every three has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Most often the abuser is a member of her own family. However, it is well established that disasters and conflicts highly increase the risk of SGBV, due to the collapse of protective systems and care services, increased use of harmful coping mechanisms, insecure environment and strengthening of rigid social and gender norms. Therefore, efforts to prevent and mitigate those risks are crucial, especially during emergencies.
This hub uses the term SGBV to reflect this broader continuum of violence, in line with Movement resolutions and IFRC Protection, Gender and Inclusion standards. The resources in this hub support Red Cross and Red Crescent actors to address SGBV across prevention, response, risk mitigation, advocacy and community engagement, as reflected in the interconnected nature of the violence shown in this image developed by the ICRC.
As Red Cross and Red Crescent staff and volunteers, what are our roles and responsibilities in preventing, mitigating, and responding to SGBV?
Watch this video to learn more.
See Annex 3: Common Types of Gender-Based Violence as well as Annex 4: Additional Key Items in the IASC Guidelines for Integrating Gender-Based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Action to find descriptions of different types of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as conceptual clarity on terms related to SGBV.
Measuring the prevalence of gender-based violence (meaning the actual number of people of who have suffered from SGBV) is extremely difficult or impossible, due to its hidden nature and due to the fact that it is under reported, because of stigma, fear, lack of trust and accountability. This is even more true in humanitarian and emergency settings.
Usually, we can only know the number of individuals who report GBV or access services, not all of the individuals who have experienced GBV.
Collecting prevalence data on SGBV pose specific ethical and safety difficulties, can be done only by trained enumerators, when services can be provided to survivors, and therefore can be really difficult in humanitarian settings. Collected facts and figures on GBV prevalence are accepted estimates that only demonstrate the widespread nature of the problem and highlight specific trends in crisis/post-crisis settings.
GBV Prevalence and incidence data are not needed to address SGBV and design good SGBV programs, and trying to collect this data can put survivors and their families even more at risk. Instead, it is better to focus information gathering on understanding trends, vulnerabilities, availability of and access to services to inform design of interventions.
With this caveat, some estimates may help us in understanding the scope of the problem.
These figures from the WHO, are taken from the 2023 Violence Against Women Prevalence Estimates Report.
According to the 2024 Report of the United Nations Secretary General on Conflict related sexual violence:
- >4,600 cases of conflict-related sexual violence were collected and verified across the 21 examined countries
- This number represents a +25% increase compared to the previous year, when 2023 had already seen a ~50% increase compared to 2022
- 92% of victims were women and girls
- 2024 marked a +35% increase in cases involving children, with victims including children as young as 1 year old
- Highest incidence recorded reported in: Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan
- It is not incidental, but often strategically used in warfare and political repression
- The gap between reported and real cases is likely very large
For more reading:
- WHO, Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2023
- UNSG, Conflict related sexual violence Report of United Nations Secretary General 2024
- See the section on Advocacy, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Campaigns
The adoption of the resolution "Sexual and gender-based violence: Joint action on prevention and response" by the 32nd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (International Conference) in 2015 was a turning point in the Movement's efforts to address sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). It transformed a shared recognition of SGBV as a critical humanitarian issue into a collective, system-wide commitment to action, clarifying expectations for National Societies, the IFRC and the ICRC in line with their respective mandates. The resolution reinforced that preventing and responding to SGBV is not a standalone activity, but a core responsibility to be integrated across humanitarian response in armed conflict, disasters, and other emergencies. Ten years on, the resolution has enabled the Movement to move from fragmented efforts towards a more coherent, principled and operationally grounded approach to addressing SGBV worldwide.
Our work on SGBV is further grounded in the Movement's broader protection framework. The resolution "Strengthening Protection in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement" adopted in 2024, establishes protection as a core commitment across all Movement components. This resolution recognizes that protection encompasses preventing and responding to violence, coercion, deliberate deprivation, and abuse—of which SGBV is a critical manifestation.
Together, these resolutions provide the mandate and framework for the Movement's comprehensive approach to preventing and addressing SGBV in humanitarian settings.
- Movement Resolution: "Sexual and gender-based violence: Joint action on prevention and response"
- Movement SGBV infographic (2019)
- Progress report: Sexual and gender-based violence: Joint action on prevention and response (Resolution 3 of the 32nd International Conference)
- Model Pledge on the Prevention of and Response to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence. Pledge for the period 2019–2023
- ICRC Response to Sexual Violence - Special Appeal (2019)
- IFRC SGBV Appeal 2019 - 2022
