Updated October 2026: this post was first published in October 2017 to share the brief. We have expanded it with a summary drawn from the brief itself.
About half of all refugees are women or girls, according to the UN Secretary-General’s 2016 report In Safety and Dignity. As the Global Compact on Refugees was being drafted, NGOs committed to gender equality in refugee responses set out what the compact and its Programme of Action would need to do to meet the New York Declaration’s promises to refugee women and girls. The brief makes one overarching point: their rights and needs have to be addressed at every stage of displacement, not as an add-on, and refugee women and girls should be consulted throughout the compact’s development.
Four principles
The brief opens with four general recommendations. Existing international agreements on the rights, empowerment and protection of women and girls should be implemented, with measurable indicators on gender and age. Gender should be considered at every stage, taking account of intersecting factors such as location, age, disability, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation, through both targeted action and mainstreaming. Refugee women and girls should be treated as leaders and contributors, not only as victims or beneficiaries. And sex- and age-disaggregated data should be collected and used throughout.
Reception and admission
At reception, the brief calls for gender-responsive minimum standards, an early gender analysis carried out with refugee participation, and planning for needs such as reproductive health care, services for survivors of gender-based violence, education and livelihoods, as well as for risks of smuggling and trafficking. Women and girls should be registered individually rather than through male household members, unaccompanied girls identified, and all children registered, including those born in flight. Interviews should take place in safe settings with female interviewers and interpreters. Detention and family separation should not be used as deterrents, and children should never be detained.
Ongoing support and host communities
For ongoing support, the brief asks for equitable access from the start: livelihoods and labour market access with childcare, cash assistance that reaches the most marginalised, health care including sexual and reproductive health, mental health support without stigma, safe education at every level, and access to justice with free legal aid. Every sector should apply the IASC guidelines on mitigating gender-based violence, and all actors should be trained on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse. Community-based protection, refugee-led groups and women’s rights organisations should be supported. For host countries, it recommends training officials and border agencies, including refugee women and girls in national development plans, and resourcing civil society and municipal services so they can serve refugees and hosts alike.
Durable solutions
On durable solutions, women and girls need equal access to information on every option and on their specific rights and risks. Voluntary repatriation policies should address the risks they face on return, with protection monitoring for returnees. Local integration should support women’s self-reliance and include them in development programmes. Nationality laws that discriminate on the basis of gender should be reformed. Resettlement for women and girls at risk should be expanded, with trained officers, and access to complementary pathways such as humanitarian, education and employment visas should be equitable.
What the brief asks of states
The brief closes with four asks. States should integrate gender into each of the four pillars of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework. They should make sure the compact delivers on the New York Declaration’s commitments to refugee women and girls. Refugee women and girls should be consulted extensively throughout the compact’s development. And the compact should require measurable gender- and age-based indicators, with standard reporting of disaggregated data, so that progress can be tracked rather than assumed.
Read the full advocacy brief, and the joint NGO recommendations on durable solutions for the Global Compact on Refugees from the same period.
References
NGO advocacy brief (2017). Making the Global Compact on Refugees work for all women and girls. October 2017. https://www.regionaldss.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/GCR-Advocacy-Brief_WomenAndGirls_October2017-1.pdf
United Nations (2016). In Safety and Dignity: Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants. Report of the Secretary-General, as cited in the brief.
