By Andrea Nunez-Flores, Humanitarian Advocacy and Policy Advisor; Keren Simons, Gender in Emergencies Advisor; Alexandra Parnebjork, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Deployable Advisor
The world is not an equal place, and this reality affects everyone differently from a very early age. Humanitarian crises like hunger, conflict, disease outbreaks and extreme weather events exacerbate gender inequalities.
Gender biases can affect children from birth and become more acute in adolescence — from their access to food to education. Young girls receive less nutrition and access to early learning. In adolescence, and particularly during emergencies, adolescent girls face gender-specific barriers, such as limited access to education and protection risks, including child, early and forced marriage.
Yet children’s organizations working in humanitarian settings still tend to overlook how gender biases affect childhood, adolescence and early adulthood.
These are the top five reasons why all children’s organizations must include a greater gender perspective, and recognize and address the gendered impact of crises on children.
1. Gender equity benefits every child.
Children, in all their diversity, have the right to express themselves freely and enjoy their rights without discrimination of any kind in any context, including during crises.
Ensuring that girls and boys have equal access to quality learning opportunities in a safe environment during emergencies supports their development. This benefits entire communities by laying the foundation for gender respect in younger generations.
2. Girls face double discrimination based on their age and their gender.
While we recognize that all children face gender-based discrimination one way or another, it is important to understand and address the greater discrimination girls often face from day one.
One example is the lack of prioritization of adolescent girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights in humanitarian crises, despite skyrocketing needs. These services can save lives and respond to unintended adolescent pregnancy, maternal morbidity and mortality or sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.
3. Children face different forms of discrimination, exclusion and violence based on their gender.
Gender-based violence and harmful practices overwhelmingly target girls, including child, early and forced marriage and unions or female genital mutilation and cutting. However, boys who experience certain types of violence may face greater neglect simply because they are boys.
When sexual violence in conflicts is committed against boys or men, underreporting and lack of accountability increases. Without a strong gender analysis, these risks will go unnoticed and unaddressed.
4. It makes our projects more effective.
Collecting sex-, age- and disability-disaggregated data is not part of the Sphere Standards by chance. As children’s organizations, we need to understand the specific risks, gaps and needs of children, who are not a homogenous group.
For example, during food insecurity crises, gender inequality can lead to girls eating less and eating last. If we do not understand the effects of gender bias in our emergency responses, we will likely not succeed in meeting the needs of diverse children among affected populations.
5. If we ignore gender dynamics, we risk doing harm.
As humanitarian and development actors, we should be aware of the consequences of our actions. Ignoring long-term, deep-rooted problems in the contexts in which we work, such as gender inequality, can perpetuate the problem.
If we provide cash and voucher assistance in emergencies without considering different needs of girls and boys, children and adolescents, and who has access to markets or makes decisions about household resources, our distributions may cause harm.
Gender discrimination and stereotypes begin to be experienced in the early years of life and may never stop. They affect children differently depending on their sex and age.
As humanitarian and children’s organizations, we have an obligation to all children. Analyzing these gender dynamics and adapting our work to address them should be inherent in what we do.
