Measures to Address Sexual Violence in Conflict Situations

UNFPA continues to serve as the IASC-designated lead for Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies (GBViE) within the Protection Cluster: 

• UNFPA has supported a wide network of actors at global and field levels. In line with its mandate as the GBV Provider of Last Resort (PoLR), UNFPA has worked with partners to deliver survivor-centered, multi-sectoral, life-saving services. These services provide assistance to GBV survivors, including survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). These efforts have resulted in increased access to essential life-saving services, support, and protection for vulnerable  individuals, particularly women and girls.
• In 2025, UNFPA  undertook a comprehensive review and update of its internal Guidance on Prevention, Mitigation and Response to Conflict-Related Sexual  Violence. The updated Guidance outlines UNFPA’s approach to addressing CRSV in humanitarian settings. While reinforcing the critical role of UNFPA in coordinating gender-based violence service providers, strengthening and maintaining safe referral pathways, and promoting survivor-centered standards across all humanitarian interventions, it also sets clear parameters to ensure that UNFPA uses information and trends of CRSV to inform programming, coordination, service delivery, and advocacy efforts, including in contexts where UNFPA coordinates the Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Arrangements (MARA).
• In the DRC, UNFPA is the convening and administrative agency for a new joint UN Programme on the reparation of CRSV survivors financed by the DRC Government’s FONAREV fund.
• In 2025, UNFPA implemented for the first time a qualitative methodology (Voices) in the DRC that was previously used in Syria, Sudan, and Cameroon. Voices collected data on women and girls’ perceptions and experiences of GBV. The findings include CRSV elements, further informing prevention and protection strategies in these contexts. In addition, UNFPA in the DRC   also led the pillar on CRSV of the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) protection advocacy strategy that was   adopted by the humanitarian country team.
• UNFPA continues to support MARA coordination and CRSV related work in Myanmar, Mali, Central Africa Republic, South Sudan and Ukraine.
• UNFPA Sudan leads GBV programs and   Area of Responsibility, coordinating a large-scale, survivor-centred response across all states, strengthening referral pathways, expanding Women and Girls Safe Spaces, and driving integrated GBV–SRH service delivery through mobile teams and one-stop centres, while also supporting local women-led organizations and frontline workforce capacity.
• UNFPA Yemen co-leads, despite severe funding constraints and access limitations, the GBV AoR and maintains a multisectoral response that combines case management, shelters, mental health services, and prevention interventions, alongside strong coordination with national actors and investment in social norms change and evidence generation.
• UNFPA Syria reached 488,000 people with GBV prevention and response services (94% Female) with a majority in the conflict related zones. This included timely access to WGSS, MHPSS, and integrated sexual reproductive health services.
• UNFPA Palestine sustained in 2025 a lifesaving GBV response despite extreme crisis conditions, providing services through safe spaces, shelters, and MHPSS centres while ensuring case management, psychosocial support, and referrals for survivors. UNFPA also played a key coordination role, maintaining survivor-centred services and protection standards even as needs far exceeded available resources. 

In 2025, the UN Trust Fund continued supporting women-led and women’s rights organizations operating in crisis, displacement and humanitarian settings, including through survivor-centred services, psychosocial support, legal aid, referrals and community-based prevention initiatives. Funded initiatives directly reached 12,727 refugee and internally displaced women and girls in 2025, while flexible and adaptive funding approaches enabled frontline organizations to sustain critical services amid escalating humanitarian and funding crises.