SHEA and Safeguarding §

• Able to report Safeguard concerns
• Able to apply basic Safeguarding practices to ensure safe work
• Definitions
  • Sexual Harassment, Exploitation, and Abuse (SHEA)
  • Safeguarding: Safeguarding refers to the policies and processes that an organisation puts in place to prevent and respond to harm of a sexualised nature including sexual harassment, abuse, and exploitation carried out by staff or those working on our behalf.

Why SHEA and Safeguarding is important at ActionAid §

1. The organization ActionAid could have great goals
   • But the process and staffs could cause the harm its trying to eradicate
     • Sexual Harrasement…
   • ActionAid’s Code of Conduct already include many of these values and expectations
2. Harm can come from
   • Deliberate sexual harrasement
   • Accidental: the designed program fails and expose participants to risks
3. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility
   • It’s everyone’s job to keep the workplace safe

What ActionAid’s SHEA and Safeguarding approach actually do §

• Aware of your power to not do harm and ensure harm isn’t done

• To prevent harm: by preventing behaviors in AA’s workspace

  1. Sexual abuse: non-consensual, forced, pressured sexual activities
  2. All sexual relationship with children
  3. Sexual Harrassment
     • Verbal: comments about someone’s sex life
     • Physical: unwanted physical contact
     • Non-verbal: Staring, inappropriate text, phone calls
  4. Relationship with adult-at-risk:
  5. Transactional & buying sex
  6. Child Abuse
  7. Romatic relationship at work: love relationship, unannounced?
     • Prohibited: with community members and higher role with lower role (power relation)
     • Discouraged, but not prohibited: equal & consensual relations but must be declared to manager for assessment

• Promote: To ensure anyone who comes in contact with ActionAid are protected from injustice, discrimination, or abuse.

• To take action safely against sexual harrasement (or others) when they happen

  • The Feminist Leadership Principles
    • To create safe working culture: respectful, supportive, values, acceptable behavior
    • To uphold rights and safety

• Types of Harrassment

Power §

• What is the role of power in safeguarding harm?

  • Power is access to things others need, we can use that power positively or negatively

• Positive Use of Power: Power used to challenge oppression, build solidarity, fight for rights of all

  • Give power to the vulnerable
    • Callout abuse of power
    • Use power to create positive changes

• Different types of power

  • Power over: have control over situation or people with less power
  • Power to: to make positive change through actions that empowers the powerless
  • Power with: is the collective effort and action of being in solidarity to give power/voice to the marginalized
  • Power within: awareness of our own individual capability to make a change, the choice to have an impact on a situation. Wheter you take action or not is your power/choice.

• Power imbalance creates inequality

  • Feminism dealt with gender equality

• How to challenge power-imbalance

  “ensure all colleagues, communities, young people, marginalized groups, and children that we work with are listened to and that their voices lead to change.”

  • When doing anything, ask yourself if its accessible to everyone, are there hidden prejudice, how do i get a more holistic and thourough POV

• When power-imbalance and other forms of oppression mix it creates safeguarding harms

  • Racism
  • Sexism

• ActionAid’s Feminist Principle as Safeguarding Approach

SHEA Safeguarding Policies §

1200

• SHEA and Safeguarding Team works with Focal Points in all AA countries
  • To embed the policies
  • To stop safeguarding harms from happening

Child Safeguarding §

• Child Safeguarding Approach: to make sure AA staffs, programmes, or processes don’t conduct child abuse
  • Anyone under 18 can’t give consent
  • Young people face risk in Unsafe spaces and poorly designed programmes
  • Exploitation: people in position of power could reward children for sexual activities
• Full Child Safeguarding Policy

Harms to Community Members §

• The Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA)
  • Sexual abuse: AA staff inappropriate sexual behavior
  • Sexual exploitation: when an ActionAid representative uses their position of power for sexual purposes
  • Harm resulting from unsafe programs and processes: not risk assessed so it leaves some vulnerable to harm
• Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Policy

Safeguarding at Work §

• Unwanted sexual advances and conducts from coworkers
• Sexual abuse, forced conduct, sxual assult, threats of sexual assult from coworkers
• Sexual exploitation of power over to gain sexual favor for benefits
• SEAH at Work Policy

Reporting Safeguarding Harm §

• Zero tolerence: all cases, no matter the severity, must be treated equaly and not be neglected

  • Solve when issue is still small, don’t let develop/pile-up

• Types of concerns that should be reported

  • Concern of sexual violence towards community members
  • Concern of harm towards children
  • Concern of abuse at work
  • Other concerns: bullying, harassment, corruption
  • Uncertain about whether to report: should report anyway

• When should you report?

  • When you witness or suspect harm
  • When you are the survivor: you can choose to report or not and take time

• Barriers to reporting concerns

  • Fear of being not believed or waved away and fear of facing stigma from community
    • Not having evidence to support your argument
  • Not knowing how to report
  • Thinking they will face consequences for reporting (losing job)
    • Being discriminated because ‘rash’ actions
  • Thinking they will be blamed themselves

AA’s reporting process §

100%

• How to solve problem
  • Discuss with perpatrator casually: if the issue is resolvable or not serious/dangerous
  • Reporting formally
    • Line Manager
    • Human Resources
• Every case is handled with confidentiality to protect everyone involved
  • HR line will talk to the perpatrator, if they accept fault, then monitor behavior & progress
  • If reported again: launch investigation
  • File concerning all information of the issue will be destroyed after the issue is over (confidentiality)
• Our responsibility to report
  • Do(s)
    • Report if you witness or hear about
    • Support those who raise concern to you
      • Don’t judge
      • Not force to report
      • Inform them the different ways to report
    • Still report if the victim asks you to keep it secret
      • Doesn't this violate the 'Victim chooses when they're ready' thing?
  • Don’t(s)
    • Take action against perpetrator yourself

References §

1. SHEA Safeguarding Policies