Strengthening Gender-Based Violence within the Centrality of Protection in Humanitarian Action in the
Democratic Republic of Congo According to the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) 2021, 9.5 million people need protection. Violence is still a reality for a number of women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the HNO 2021 estimates that 6.8 million persons are in need of various Gender Based Violence (GBV) services with the number rising to 7 million by the first quarter. These populations have needs in terms of risk mitigation, response services and violence prevention. Gender Based Violence is largely and systematically reported in relation with other emergency crisis and humanitarian actors in the DRC and assistance is able to reach between 30,000 and 40,000 survivors yearly. Women and girls, in DRC can experience sexual violence, including conflict related sexual violence. Some vulnerable women and girls adopt negative coping mechanisms such as the use of survival sex to access health, food or shelter. Lastly, they might be forced to marry someone to reduce their vulnerability caused by a crisis situation. Internally displaced persons, women and girls living with disabilities, adolescent girls, unaccompanied minors and children associated with armed groups might be particularly vulnerable to these forms of violence.
The GBV sub-cluster recorded a 95% increase of GBV cases in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The majority of cases were reported in the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, Kasaï Central, Tanganyika and Kinshasa. As of December 2020, 67,448 GBV cases was recorded and responded to with 3.5% or 2,357 of the survivors being persons living with disabilities. The number of GBV cases has significantly increased by 94% compared to 2019 which is due to the political instability, to the increase of conflicts, and to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) has endorsed a Protection Strategy for 2018-2019 (that needs to be updated) and is engaged in the National Roadmap on the Call to Action (CtA) for the protection on GBV in emergency.
The Humanitarian Coordinator (HC), UNFPA, Save the Children and European Commission
Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) are the leading champions on the CtA.
The HCT uses the various channels including its Protection Cluster, its dynamic
GBV sub-cluster as well as reporting channels like the National GBV database, the Monitoring and
Reporting Arrangements (MARA), the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanisms (MRM), the Emergency
Response Mechanism as well as the Protection of Civilians spearheaded by MONUSCO
to compile data and effectively respond to protection needs.
Nonetheless, use of protection mechanisms by other part of humanitarian response is still insufficient,
and this impact the centrality of protection. At the mid-term review of the CtA in August 2019, the HC
committed to reinforce GBV within the centrality of Protection to ensure that humanitarian action
focuses on women and girls. However, the Protection Cluster and its GBV sub-cluster alone cannot
ensure the maximum needed support for the implementation of the Protection Strategy throughout the
whole humanitarian action. Furthermore, among the four collective outcomes for the Nexus approach that have been identified in country, GBV has been considered as a key priority area on which peace-development and humanitarian communities should concentrate their efforts. 

The HCT following various levels of consultations, reached a
consensus to engage a Senior Protection Advisor (SPA), through the PROCAP roster to support DRC
to increase its advocacy on protection, resource mobilization and protection risk mitigation while
ensuring that GBV is strongly taken into account within the centrality of protection.
The Senior Protection Adviser will be deployed as an Inter-agency resource to ensure additional
protection expertise, address capacity needs in protection efforts, in addition to providing training and
influencing policy and practice. The mission will last for 8 months to support humanitarian