Owning Rights and Protection: GBV Prevention, Mitigation, and Response in Colombia
Phase: NA
Conditions: Refugee Self-reliance, Mental Health Issue, Empowerment, Gender Based Violence Knowledge and Perceived Risk, Decision Making
Sponsor: Washington University School of Medicine

Title:  
Owning Rights and Protection: GBV Prevention, Mitigation, and Response in Colombia (2023-
2025) 
 
Date: February 27, 2024 
 
NCT: NCT06312592 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
Contact email address 
 
a.harker@uniandes.edu.co 
 
Project title 
 
Owning Rights and Protection: GBV Prevention, Mitigation, and Response in Colombia  
 
Investigador Principal (Profesor de la Universidad de los Andes)  
 
Arturo Harker, PhD. Associate Professor at the School of Government, Universidad de Los Andes  
 
Co-Principal Investigators 
 
Tatiana Andia, PhD. Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Universidad de Los Andes  
 
Students (specify project type: thesis, student initiative, other) 
None 
 
Academic Unit of Principal Investigator 
Escuela de Gobierno, Universidad de los Andes 
 
Position of the principal investigator 
Associate Professor 
 
Financing entity 
■ External 
□ Internal 
□ None other than my academic research workload 
 
Funding entity (specify institution, call, relevant academic unit) 
United States’ Bureau of Population, Refugees and  Migration  
 
 

 
 
 
 
Abstract  
As of August 2021, Colombia hosts the vast majority of Venezuelan refugees and migrants 
(UNHCR, 2022). For vulnerabile refugees and migrants in Colombia, and especially for women, 
gender-based violence (GBV) is present during transit and continues in their new homes where 
xenophobia, lack of accessible and adequate services, lack of safe economic opportunities, and 
lack of information on access to services, further increase risk. Lack of livelihood opportunities 
also affect vulnerable refugees and migrants, especially women, with barriers to employment 
including lack of information; precarious working conditions with lower payments and longer 
working days with increasing risks of labor exploitation; xenophobia and discrimination; limited 
access to formal labor markets; lack of access to financial services, among others. To address 
these issues, we are conducting a randomized-controlled trial )RCT) of HIAS’ Entrepreneurship 
School with  Gender Lens (ESGL), a methodology that targets GBV survivors and women at-risk 
to help them develop business ideas, access needed support for the prevention of and response 
to GBV, exploitation and trafficking, and improve participants’ overall self-reliance. The RCT will 
be conducted within four cities in Colombia; approximately 80 eligible participants will be 
enrolled in each city and randomized to a treatment or control arm in a 2:1 ratio. Survey 
questionnaires will be administered to participants at baseline, eight months following baseline 
(endline), and 3-4 months after endline. Outcomes of interest include household self-reliance, 
mental health, empowerment, decision-making, and GBV risk and knowledge. 
 
Background and Rationale 
 
Colombia is a major host of forcibly displaced Venezuelans, currently with approximately 2.5 
million vulnerabile refugees and migrants. Colombia also has over 6.7 million internally displaced 
persons (IDPs) due to historical conflicts and violence. For vulnerabile refugees and migrants in 
Colombia, GBV is present during transit and continues in their new homes where xenophobia, 
lack of accessible and adequate services, lack of safe economic opportunities, and lack of 
information on access to services, further increase risk. 
 
HIAS/UNHCR’s 2022 study found limited availability of shelters and lack of protection services in 
border areas, placing women at a higher risk of violence by organised crime and drug traffickers. 
An increase in registered cases of GBV has also been identified as well as a trend in sexual 
relationships between adult men and VRAM girls and young women, promising economic 

stability, or access to regularisation to control their partners, exposing girls and young women to 
cycles of violence and other negative consequences such as early pregnancy.  
 
Vulnerable refugees and migrants also face psychosocial effects from their migratory experience, 
such as depression and anxiety and are further impacted by scarce protective resources when 
arriving in Colombia. This negative impact is more pronounced for GBV survivors due to 
psychological effects of enduring GBV, including low self-esteem, depression, fear, anguish, guilt, 
and post-traumatic stress. 
 
Along with existing limitations in local institutional capacity to respond in the protection, health 
and justice sectors, xenophobia and institutional violence challenge access to services for GBV 
survivors. At the same time, local authorities lack knowledge on GBV survivors’ rights and the 
required procedures to guarantee appropriate services, indicating the need to strengthen local 
capacity. 
 
Lack of livelihood opportunities also affect vulnerable refugees and migrants, especially women. 
HIAS’ latest Labor Market and Capacity Assessment identifies numerous barriers to seeking 
employment, including barriers in terms of regularisation; lack of information; precarious 
working conditions with lower payments and longer working days with increasing risks of labor 
exploitation; xenophobia and discrimination; limited access to formal labor markets; lack of 
access to financial services, among others.  
 
Intervention 
HIAS will promote the incubation of businesses through its Entrepreneurship School with  Gender 
Lens (ESGL), a methodology that targets GBV survivors and women at-risk to help them develop 
business ideas, access needed support for the prevention of and response to GBV, exploitation 
and trafficking, and improve participants’ overall self-reliance. Participants will go through a 
general business curriculum, work on business plans and learn gender issues and ways to mitigate 
GBV risks. Upon training completion, participants are eligible to pitch their business idea to a 
panel of experts and receive $800 of seed capital. They will also receive follow-up business 
advisory support for at least six months, focusing on access to markets and finance and building 
support networks, in order to continue building self-reliance.  
 
The ESGL will include a mental health and psychosocial support module, contributing to 
participant self-sufficiency, resilience, and empowerment through skills development such as 
coping skills, problem-solving capabilities, self-esteem, self-efficacy, communication abilities, 
self-regulation, and leadership, aimed at strengthening their ability to generate dignified 
livelihoods.  
 
Study objective  
This study will conduct a pilot-randomised controlled trial to evaluate the entrepreneurship 
curriculum.  The evaluation has three primary objectives: 

1. Evaluate the preliminary effectiveness of the entrepreneurship programming to improve 
household self-reliance, mental health, and empowerment for households where women 
members run businesses. 
2. Examine the relationship between GBV risk and self-reliance among women refugees in 
the Colombian migration context.  
3. Assess the feasibility and acceptability of the refugee self-reliance index as a 
measurement tool in programs that strengthen self-reliance pathways for women 
individuals. 
 
 
Methodology 
Overview 
This pilot RCT will be conducted in Cali, Ipiales, Pasto, and Popayan, and will include a control 
group. Eligible participants will be randomized to the treatment or control arm and the study 
team will collect data from both the intervention and comparison groups at: 1) the program 
baseline, 2) the program endline (8 months post-baseline), and 3) follow-up 3-4 months after 
program completion. 
 
Screening for Eligibility: Inclusion Criteria 
Using their database and a pre-screening tool, HIAS will identify potential participants who meet 
the following criteria: women, at least 18 years of age, at risk of GBV or ever experienced GBV, 
have a migratory permit (for migrants and refugees), are Colombian or Venezuelan, have been 
residing in Colombia for at least six months, and have an entrepreneur profile registered with 
HIAS. Individuals with the targeted characteristics will then be further screened for study 
eligibility using the Self-Reliance Index (SRI). First launched in 2020, the Self-Reliance Index (SRI) 
is the first-ever global tool for measuring the progress of refugee households toward self-reliance 
(Seff, Leeson, and Stark, 2021). Eligible participants must receive a score between 2 and 3.5 on 
the tool to be included in the study. This range of scores aims to capture women who are 
vulnerable, but who are in a stable enough situation to develop an income generating activity (meaning 
that they are not unhoused or in need of urgent humanitarian assistance), while still in need of financial 
support, training and GBV assistance. If a participant’s score on the SRI falls outside of the specified 
range, they will be ineligible for further inclusion, thanked for their time, and removed from the 
study. Participants whose score falls within the specified range will be included in the study and 
further baseline data will be collected including information on mental health, empowerment, 
and safety. 
Subject Recruitment, enrolment and sample size 
HIAS will use their database and the pre-screening tool to identify potentially eligible participants 
for the study. They will aim to identify approximately 90-100 potentially eligible women through 

the pre-screening tool. Official enrollment, consenting, and formal assessment of eligibility will 
be carried out by the research team. Data collectors will obtain written consent from previously 
pre-screened women prior to administering the SRI. After administering the SRI, data collectors 
will immediately administer the remaining survey questionnaire modules for participants whose 
SRI scores fall within the eligible range of 2 to 3.5. Women whose scores fall outside of the 2-3.5 
range will be thanked for their time and not assigned to an evaluation arm.  
 
Participants will be recruited from four cities: Cali, Ipiales, Pasto, and Popayan. The study will aim 
to enrol 80 women in the study within each city, where participants will be randomly assigned to the 
intervention or control arm at a 2:1 ratio.. As such, 90-100 women will be identified as potential 
participants through the pre-screening tool to account for ineligibility during the SRI administration phase.  
 
At the time of enrolment, participants will receive a unique study ID. Following enrolment and baseline 
data collection, participants will be randomly assigned to the control or treatment arm using a random 
number generator in Stata (a data analysis software). The unique study ID will be used to track participants 
over time for future points of data collection. 
 
Consent 
Prior to data collection, the researcher will explain the study purpose, procedures, potential risks, 
and safeguards, such as participant confidentiality and referrals for services, where necessary. 
The researcher will explain that participants may be assigned to take part in the intervention based on 
randomization but that non-selection for the intervention will not prevent them from later participation 
in HIAS programs. They will be informed that they may also be provided with a referral for other programs. 
The researcher will emphasize that participation is completely voluntary and that participants 
will not be penalized in any way for choosing not to participate. Researchers will also explain and 
emphasize that participating or not participating in the study is purely voluntary and will have no 
impact on their access to future HIAS programming. Prospective participants will also be told that 
they are free to withdraw from the study at any time and to refuse to answer some or all of the 
questions. Participants will be informed that their data may be used by the research team in the 
future. The researcher will encourage the interviewee to ask any questions about the study 
processes before consenting to participate in the study. 
 
Participants may feel compelled to consent to the study in spite of the above-mentioned 
informed consent procedures. Potential power differentials between the participants and data 
collectors may result in inadvertent coercion to participate in the study. The research team will 
carefully analyze the context-specific factors that may result in participant coercion and discuss 
strategies for ensuring genuine informed consent. Some of the measures that may be used 
include: 
● Build on existing staff experience with informed consent procedures in other projects. 

● Intensive staff training on the importance of informed consent and procedures to 
minimize potential coercion. Such procedures may include careful explanation and 
repetition of the nature of voluntary consent (e.g., participation in the study will not affect 
access to services; participants are free to refuse to answer any questions or to withdraw 
from the study at any time). Participants will also be given time to consider their decision. 
● Multiple opportunities for participants to ask questions throughout the informed consent 
process and subsequent data collection. Researchers will be trained to respond to 
frequently asked questions or concerns that participants may raise. Close collaboration 
with HIAS staff to avoid recruiting participants who may be unable to provide assent 
voluntarily due to mental health or cognitive disability. 
 
 
 
Data Collection 
Participant data will be collected at three time points: baseline (when participants are first enrolled in 
the study), eight months post-baseline (upon program completion), and three months following 
endline data collection (eleven months after baseline). Data collectors will be hired and trained by Los 
Andes and the RSRI team members using a combination of online learning modules and in-person 
training, which will cover the study tools, evaluation protocol, humanitarian principles and its current 
practice, safeguarding policies, Psychological First Aid (PFA) gender and GBV, and research ethics 
and best practice. 
 
 
Study Outcome Measures and Ascertainment 
Self-reliance: 
The Self-Reliance Index (SRI) is the first-ever global tool for measuring the progress of refugee 
households toward self-reliance (Seff, Leeson, and Stark, 2021). The tool contains twelve 
domains focused on a household’s basic needs, resources, and sustainability. Domains measure 
conditions and assets that increase the likelihood that refugees will be able to continue meeting 
their needs in the future. The study participant will respond on behalf of her household. The final 
self-reliance score may take a value from 1 to 5, with higher scores reflecting greater self-reliance. 
The tool is available in Spanish and has been previously validated with Venezuelan migrants in 
Colombia. 
  
Resilience: 
The Brief Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS) captures tendencies to cope adaptively with stress. The 
scale focuses on the tendency to effectively use coping strategies in a flexible and committed 
manner to actively solve problems despite stressful circumstances (Trejos Herrera et al., 2023). 
 
Women’s empowerment 

Women’s empowerment will be measured using the Women’s Multidimensional Empowerment 
Index, which was developed using the 2015 Colombian Demographic and Health Survey 
(Rodríguez Guerrero, Nimeh, & Franco Correa, 2021). The index assesses empowerment 
multidimensionally based on the definition of empowerment proposed by Kabeer (1999) 
(Resources, domestic decision making, decision making on personal matters, and achievements), 
while capturing the notion of disempowerment. 
 
Gender-based violence: Three items from the HIAS Knowledge and Perception  of GBV risks and 
Women's Empowerment tool will be used. The HIAS tool was adapted based on other tools used 
in the Latin American region (cite). The three items pertain to self-reported perceptions of feeling 
supported by the community, feeling useful, and feeling controlled by one or more people. 
Responses are on a likert scale. 
 
Ethical considerations 
Risks and Benefits 
According to Resolution number 008430 of 1993 of the Colombian Ministry of Health and Social 
Protection, this is "research without risk", which includes: "studies that employ retrospective 
documentary research techniques and methods and those in which no intervention or intentional 
modification of the biological, physiological, psychological or social variables of the individuals 
participating in the study is carried out, including: review of medical records, interviews, 
questionnaires and others in which no sensitive aspects of their behaviour are identified or dealt 
with".  
 
The study is expected to carry minimal risk of loss of confidentiality associated with participation 
in group discussions, which will be minimized by data confidentiality measures and by using 
verbal informed consent procedures. Individuals have the option to not participate, or if they 
choose to participate, to decline to answer any question that they do not feel comfortable 
answering, or to choose to end their participation in the study at any time. We do not anticipate 
any psychological risk that may result from study participants.  All measures will be taken to 
minimize the risk related to the contracting and spreading COVID-19 among any of the 
researchers or study participants, following the guidelines of the Ministry of Health and the 
University.  
 
Safety and Adverse Events 
 
All referral processes will be handled by HIAS as follows.  
 
CASE MANAGEMENT PROTOCOL AND REFERRAL ROUTES 
At HIAS, we have developed clear pathways and procedures to prevent, identify, and promptly 
address the needs of all Persons of Concern (PDI), that is, all participants who are directly or 
indirectly involved with each of our programs. For HIAS Colombia, it is essential to meet the needs 
of our beneficiaries, especially those who will be part of the Owning Rights and Protection: GBV 
Prevention, Mitigation, and Response in Colombia project. 

 
This protocol was created to specify the pathways for care and management of cases and needs 
that may arise during the implementation of the research and that, in turn, represent a risk to 
the psychosocial well-being and safety of our participants and their families. For example, cases 
of PDI who are not selected to participate in the EGV, participants who have been randomly 
assigned to the control group, and/or participants who receive EGV training and express some 
type of need for care. 
 
STEPS FOR CASE MANAGEMENT AND REFERRAL ROUTES 
The following describes the procedure designed in conjunction with all strategic areas of HIAS, 
with the aim of providing clarity on the comprehensive case management and referral pathways 
we regularly implement as an organization to ensure the protection of our beneficiaries and 
provide an immediate response to their needs. 
 
HIAS has a robust network of services for the population, as well as referral and counter-referral 
pathways with other humanitarian organizations and institutional entities to ensure the 
protection of participants. 
 
Chart 1. Procedure for case management and referrals within the SRI-PRM research project 
 
Stage 1. Preparation for a situation or need 
The HIAS Colombia team prepares to address the needs of IDPs through actions that promote 
the appropriate approach and management of cases based on a rights-based, gender-based, and 
age-based approach, which complies with humanitarian principles and prevents actions that 
cause harm. 
In summary, the following strategies will be implemented: 
• HIAS staff will be trained to comply with strict confidentiality standards for case management. 
• Clear referral pathways to HIAS services are available, and, if required, external referral 
pathways will be activated with partner organizations and entities. 
• HIAS services are implemented in a coordinated and complementary manner. Constant 
communication channels will be established between the Economic Inclusion area and other 
HIAS areas to avoid duplication of care, prevent re-victimization of participants, and facilitate 
access to services. 

Additionally, at HIAS, we work closely with government institutions, partner organizations in the 
territories, the private sector, and refugee communities, promoting local integration and access 
to rights and services. 
 
Stage 2. Identification of situations or needs 
When needs or situations arise that affect the psychosocial well-being of our IDPs and/or 
threaten their continued participation in the program, the HIAS Colombia team will be able to 
respond to the case by activating the corresponding route, depending on whether it is a GBV or 
MHPSS case. 
Likewise, the following strategies will be developed: 
● IE Officers and Research Assistants who will be present at the training and data collection 
spaces will be trained to address any type of situation or need by providing crisis support and 
Psychological First Aid to individuals experiencing emotional distress, family conflicts, domestic 
violence, and suicidal thoughts. 
● IE Officers will then inform the IDPs about the services available at HIAS (GBV Case 
Management, Individual Psychosocial Care, and Legal Protection) and will ask each individual if 
they would like to be referred to any of these services. 
Stage 3. Recording the Situation or Need 
When participants express a need to be assisted by HIAS professionals, the needs and/or 
situation assessment process is activated. 
Likewise, the following actions will be carried out: 
• Internal referral forms will be used to describe the identified situation, the level 
of risk identified, the priority range under which the case should be addressed, 
and whether the participant's consent is obtained. 
• Once the PDI's consent is obtained, the IE Officer will carry out the referral process 
to the GBV Case Manager or the MHPSS Officer, using the internal case referral 
forms provided by the MHPSS and GBV department. 
• The MHPSS and GBV services at HIAS Colombia conduct risk and needs 
assessments to determine the support participants require, as well as to negotiate 
access to additional services with partner organizations. Should external referrals 
arise, the GBV Case Manager or the MHPSS Officer will be responsible for making 
them and following up on them. 
• The Economic Inclusion Officer will follow up on referrals and will be in contact 
with the MHPSS Officer or GBV Manager in charge of providing care to the 
beneficiary. 
HIAS Colombia has developed a matrix of physical and psychosocial risks associated with the 
implementation of the gender-responsive entrepreneurship school program, and has also 
implemented risk mitigation actions for each situation. 

Stage 4. Response to the situation that occurred or need encountered 
 
Once a need for care arises for an IDP, HIAS is able to receive, assist, and manage the case 
expeditiously and with a survivor-centered approach. 
• The Economic Inclusion Specialist will provide technical support and supervision in case 
management. 
• The Economic Inclusion Coordinator will support the team's supervision and ensure 
proper compliance with the processes. They will also be in close communication with 
the MHPSS and GBV Coordinators to provide appropriate support for IDPs attending the 
gender-focused entrepreneurship school. 
• It is worth mentioning that HIAS has protocols and/or case analysis committees in which 
the participant's continued participation is assessed specifically when incidents of risk of 
gender-based violence occur during the program's implementation. 
REFERRAL PROCESS TO INTERNAL HIAS AREAS 
REFERRALS TO MHPSS SERVICES 
Individual psychosocial care is part of the third-level technical interventions, which are used to 
stabilize and provide people of interest with ongoing emotional support that promotes daily 
functioning, stress management, and healthy grieving, and facilitates the identification of 
flexible coping strategies. 
Criteria for Making MHPSS Referrals 
IE Officers will be able to identify each of the criteria necessary to make a referral to the mental 
health and individual psychosocial care service. In this sense, once the criteria are identified, 
the internal referral pathway is activated, where the MHPSS Officer receives, assesses, and 
provides psychosocial care. To make referrals to the MHPSS area, the following criteria must be 
met: 
Ø The teaching and research staff's willingness to attend a more complex, specialized MHPSS 
intervention, in this case, Individual Psychosocial Care. 
Ø Frequency: Presence and recurrence of psychosocial indicators (psychological distress) 

Ø Severity: Intensity of psychosocial indicators (severe, moderate, and mild) 
Ø Stage of the survivor's lifespan 
Ø Interference with areas of functioning (personal, family, social, work) 
Ø Low level of adherence to or appropriation of coping mechanisms 
The above criteria are evaluated by the SMAPS Officer based on the description of the reason 
for referral, which must be included in the referral form previously sent by the EI Officer. 
Reasons for Case Closure 
For effective case closure in individual psychosocial care, the following conditions must be met: 
Ø There is evidence of a reduction in the occurrence of psychosocial indicators (subjective 
distress) 
Ø The person shows less irritability and/or aggressive behavior 
Ø The person shows less distress when speaking and recounting something related to their 
painful experience 
Ø The person returns to enjoying activities they had usually avoided 
Ø The person feels more motivated to talk with others 
Ø The person becomes active in daily activities 
Ø The person seeks more help 
Ø The person reports fewer somatic symptoms 
Ø The person reports having more tools to cope with their problems 
Ø The person shows an increase in their emotional well-being of at least 3 points on the 
Warwick Scale 
Once the MHPSS Officer verifies that there has been a notable improvement in the IDP's 
psychosocial well-being, they are responsible for finalizing the individual intervention and 
proceeding to close the case.  
GBV SERVICE REFERRALS 
Among the services offered by the GBV area, GBV Case Management provides comprehensive 
support to women, girls, adolescents, survivors, or members of the LGBTQI+ community who 
are experiencing any type of violence or are at risk of being subjected to violence due to their 
gender or factors associated with it. 
GBV case management is carried out in three modalities: cross-border, emergency, and 
comprehensive. Case management includes a process for profiling individuals, assessing their 
GBV risk level, designing an action plan based on specific GBV needs, outlining commitments 
and objectives for case management. It also includes making the respective internal and 

external referrals to services that mitigate the identified needs, conducting case follow-up, and 
ultimately closing the case. If the IE Officer identifies any risk or situation of violence among 
participants participating in the EGSE, they may initiate a referral route to the GBV Case 
Manager, who will receive, assess, and provide management for the specific case. The GBV 
Officer will provide support to the Case Manager and provide technical guidance while 
providing care. The GBV Officer will follow the global protocols developed by HIAS for the 
management of gender-based violence cases, as well as guidelines based on international 
standards. 
Criteria for Referrals to GBV Case Management 
In accordance with the GBV Case Management Action Plan, and specifically the needs of the 
GBV person, referrals are made to the services they require, which we offer both internally and 
externally. 
The criteria defined for referrals to this service are: 
Ø Risk of rights violations due to gender 
Ø Being abused and/or discriminated against (physically, verbally, financially, and 
psychologically) and/or humiliated because of their gender 
Ø Being a member of the LGBTQ+ community and being subjected to violence (physically, 
verbally, financially, and psychologically) or perceiving themselves at risk of being subjected to 
violence due to their gender. 
Reasons for Closing GBV Cases 
To proceed with the closure of GBV cases from the case management service, the following 
conditions must be met: 
Ø Loss of contact with the survivor for more than one month 
Ø Withdrawal from the process by the survivor 
Ø Compliance with objectives within the framework of rights and services management 
Ø Compliance with the maximum of 6 follow-up sessions that can be provided. 
Compliance with these conditions is validated by the GBV Case Manager, who also provides the 
support and follow-up required by the PDI. The GBV Officer provides supervision and technical 
support for the appropriate handling of all GBV cases. 
 
 
Data analysis 
Quantitative data analysis  

Preliminary and descriptive analyses will include: one-way frequency distributions of each survey 
item and item composite scores, including measures of central tendency (e.g. mean) and 
variability (e.g. standard deviation) for continuous, approximately normally distributed 
composite scores. Cronbach’s alpha of 0.6 and above will be used as a threshold cut-off to 
determine the reliability of the composite scores.  
We will also model the variation in participants’ responses across time. We will test and compute 
effect sizes for the following hypotheses:  
● Directly following program implementation, women who participate in the intervention 
will exhibit greater improvement in outcomes, compared with women who do not 
participate in the intervention.  
● Three months following the completion of program implementation, women who 
participate in the intervention will exhibit greater improvement in outcomes, compared 
with women who do not participate in the intervention.  
We plan to test this hypothesis using random coefficient models. The random coefficient model 
is similar to conducting a difference in difference analysis, but controls and adjusts for additional 
covariates such as time, taking into account the fact that the data are repeatedly measured or 
correlated over time. These models incorporate random intercepts and slopes for each research 
participant based upon the participant’s multiple measurements on outcomes captured over 
time (pre-test versus post-test) (Longford, 1993).  
The inclusion of random intercepts and slopes in these analyses renders them random coefficient 
models, which are also known as mixed effects models (Verbeke & Molenberghs, 2000), 
multilevel models (Goldstein, 1995), or hierarchical linear models (HLMs) (Bryk & Raudenbush, 
2002). All models will include both time-constant demographic (e.g., gender, prior academic 
achievement and marital status) and time-varying antecedent covariates (e.g., phasing of 
program implementation).  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
References 
1.  Bryk, A. S., & Raudenbush, S. W. (1992). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data 
analysis methods. Sage Publications, Inc. 
 
2. Fitzmaurice, G. M., Laird, N. M., & James, H. (2004). Ware. 2004. Applied longitudinal 
analysis, 3462-3469 
 
3. Goldstein, H. (1995). Hierarchical data modeling in the social sciences. Journal of Educational 
and Behavioral Statistics, 20(2), 201-204. 
 
4. Kabeer, N. (1999). Resources, agency, achievements: Reflections on the measurement 
of women's empowerment. Development and change, 30(3), 435-464. 
 
5.   Longford, N. T. (1993). Logistic regression with random coefficients. ETS Research Report 
Series, 1993(1), i-50. 
 
6. Rodríguez Guerrero, E., Nimeh, Z., & Franco Correa, A. (2021). Women's empowerment in 
Colombia: A multidimensional approach (No. 2021-028). United Nations University-Maastricht 
Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT). 
 
7.  Seff, I., Leeson, K., & Stark, L. (2021). Measuring self-reliance among refugee and internally displaced 
households: the development of an index in humanitarian settings. Conflict and Health, 15(1), 1-12. 
 
8. Trejos Herrera, A., Alarcón, Y., Bahamón Muñetón, M., Vinnacia Alpi, S., González Gutiérrez, O., 
Llinás Solano, H. y Quevedo Barrios, D. (2023). Validación escala breve de estrategias resilientes. 
Interdisciplinaria, 40(2), 479-496. 
 
9. Molenberghs, G., & Verbeke, G. (2000). Inference for the random effects. Linear Mixed Models for 
Longitudinal Data, 77-92. 
 
 
 
 

 
Trabajo de campo 
Protection of human subjects 
Are you going to work with human subjects? 
■ Yes 
□ No 
□ Otro:  
 
Are you going to work with any of these communities? 
● LGBTI communities 
● Prisoners 
● Victims of the armed conflict 
● Clinical patients 
● Students 
● Black communities 
● I will not be working with communities 
■ Other: GBV survivors and women at riskEn caso de trabajar con otra comunidad, por favor mencione cuál. 
■ Other: Socioeconomically vulnerable women. 
 
Conflict of Interest 
 
We encourage you to declare any conflict of interest you believe may affect the project in 
question. For more information about conflicts of interest, please visit our page. 
 
No competing interests need be disclosed for any of the researchers involved in the study. 
 
Ethical Considerations 
In a maximum of 500 words, outline the ethical considerations that will be taken into account in the implementation 
of the project, clearly identifying at what points in the project's development ethical dilemmas are anticipated and 
explaining how you plan to avoid or resolve them in your research. Ethical dilemmas may relate to: data collection, 
handling, and archiving; conflicts of interest; fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism; research with human subjects; 
animal research; the project's social responsibility; the project's environmental impact; and issues of authorship and 
funding, among others. If you do not answer this question, the committee will not consider your project. 
 
According to Resolution number 008430 of 1993 of the Colombian Ministry of Health and Social 
Protection, this is "research without risk", which includes: "studies that employ retrospective 
documentary research techniques and methods and those in which no intervention or intentional 
modification of the biological, physiological, psychological or social variables of the individuals 
participating in the study is carried out, including: review of medical records, interviews, 
questionnaires and others in which no sensitive aspects of their behaviour are identified or dealt 
with".  

 
The study is expected to carry minimal risk of loss of confidentiality associated with participation 
in group discussions, which will be minimized by data confidentiality measures and by using 
verbal informed consent procedures. Individuals have the option to not participate, or if they 
choose to participate, to decline to answer any question that they do not feel comfortable 
answering, or to choose to end their participation in the study at any time. We do not anticipate 
any psychological risk that may result from study participants.  All measures will be taken to 
minimize the risk related to the contracting and spreading COVID-19 among any of the researchers 
or study participants, following the guidelines of the Ministry of Health and the University. All 
focus group and feedback discussions will be conducted in-person. 
 
Additional detailed information on the consenting process and handling of adverse events and 
referrals can be found in the protocol above.