THE PARGIRC PROJECT
In partnership with the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women in 2020, WAW launches a new project aiming to prevent and respond to gender-based violence (GBV) in Internally-Displaced Persons and refugee returnee settlement communities in Afghanistan.
WAW and the UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women
Despite ongoing conflict and instability in Afghanistan, and the overwhelming challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Women for Afghan Women (WAW) has successfully expanded its programmatic reach in 2020 to serve yet another group of vulnerable and at-risk Afghan women and girls. In partnership with the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, WAW has launched a project entitled Prevention and Response to Gender-Based Violence in Internally-Displaced Persons (IDPs) and Returnees’ Communities (PARGIRC) aimed at improving overall access to essential, safe, and adequate multi-sectoral services and to address gender-based violence (GBV) in the context of the forced displacement and refugee returnee crisis in Afghanistan.
WAW has set-up mobile women’s centers in Balkh, Faryab, and Kunduz provinces that provide medical services, access to education, vocational and life skills classes, and psychosocial counseling. The project refers women in need of safe shelter, social services, and legal support to WAW’s Family Guidance and Women’s Protection Centers.
Awareness-raising sessions on women’s rights, children’s rights, and available resources for refugee returnees and IDPs also are provided to Community Development Councils, refugee returnees, IDPs, government officials, civil society organizations, community-based groups, and other stakeholders.
Background
Some of the drivers behind many of the humanitarian needs that WAW tries to address in Afghanistan are an outcome of the country’s challenging conflict displacement and influx of Afghan refugees returning from other countries. Since 2017, the number of Afghan IDPs and refugee returnees have grown exponentially. Moreover, the latter often require support from the government and humanitarian providers immediately upon arrival and as they seek to reintegrate.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, made a plea to the international community to continue its engagement in the country’s delicate, ongoing peace process as he recalls that another “nearly 300,000 Afghans have been internally displaced due to conflict in 2020 alone. They remain in acute need of humanitarian support, as do the nearly three million previously displaced and the nine million people who have lost their livelihoods due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.”
PARGIRC Goal, Scope, and Objectives
Goal
- The PARGIRC project goal is to serve 3,528 vulnerable IDPs and refugee returnees who have survived gender-based violence by 2023.
- Over 350 survivors are expected to receive shelter services, and 14,040 beneficiaries from different IDP and returnee groups are expected to benefit from ongoing training and resource sessions on women and child rights.
- The project will also provide medical services and educational supplies (stationery and school uniforms) for the 1,620 children of the afore-mentioned 3528 beneficiaries by project-end.
Scope
The PARGIRC project was launched by WAW and the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women during the COVID-19 pandemic and in response to the acute needs of the most vulnerable communities.
Currently, the project works in the provinces of Balkh, Faryab, and Kunduz, with plans to expand in the future to the other 21 Afghan provinces in which WAW operates. These provinces were selected because:
- They host the highest numbers of IDPs and refugee returnees.
- Settlement communities in these provinces have the highest number of GBV cases reported among at-risk women and girls who reside in these communities including sexual and physical abuse, child labor, and human trafficking.
Objectives
The project established Project Mobile Teams (PMTs) that will work over the next 3 years in settlement communities in Balkh, Faryab, and Kunduz provinces to ensure women and children refugee returnees and IDPs, and survivors of GBV, have access to medical, legal, mediation services, and psycho-social counseling.
These services are carried out as follows:
- Three PMTs conduct biweekly needs assessments in the settlements to ensure women and children are reached and connected to resources.
- Each PMT is staffed with a psychologist, medical doctor, social worker, case worker, outreach trainer, and vocational trainer.
- PMTs provide vocational and life skills training to women so that they can reintegrate more successfully and independently into the larger, permanent community.
- The project offers human rights training in every settlement community where it operates. This training is made available to Community Development Councils (CDCs), other government officials, community leaders, and IDPs and refugee returnees themselves.
Finally, WAW also connects women and children to our established Women’s Protection Centers (women’s shelters) and Family Guidance Centers, where children are enrolled in schools and women receive legal support for their cases.
If a woman requires longer term care and protection, they can live at our women’s shelters where they receive extensive psycho-social support, and attend rights, life skills, and vocational training to ensure they can access economic opportunities and be self-sufficient when they are reintegrated.
PARGIRC Achievements in Balkh, Faryab and Kunduz as of November 2020:
- 1129 clients (811 women, 174 girls, and 144 boys) were provided with medical services.
- 548 children (259 girls and 289 boys) whose mothers have experienced GBV, were provided with educational supplies (stationeries and school uniforms).
- 300 vulnerable women participated in the vocational and life skills (needle work or embroidery) classes.
- 1178 vulnerable women (refugee returnee/IDP survivors of violence) were identified and provided with dignity kits, and
- 3272 individual psychosocial counseling sessions were provided to these 1178 clients.
- 35 of these beneficiaries were referred to WAW’s FGCs and WPCs for further shelter services).
- 97 group psychosocial counseling sessions were held for these clients.
- 10 clients who received shelter services were provided with a reintegration package (sewing machine and its table) as well as psychosocial support during the reintegration process.
- 372 Community Development Councils (including 128 women and 244 men) received training on how to help and support the Project Mobile Teams (PMTs) in the three provinces.
- 2880 participants from IDP and returnees communities (1461 women and 1419 men) received GBV awareness-raising sessions. (These sessions are more for illiterate people such as: husbands of women who were the cause of domestic violence, and local people.)
- 1800 participants (868 women and 932 men, including government officials, students, teachers, and civil society activists) received Information Dissemination Sessions (IDS).
