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Survivors may be based in areas with few or no GBV response services. For example, survivors in rural locations may have limited access to public transport that can help them get to services in urban centres. Rural areas also tend to have higher levels of poverty, meaning survivors may not have the funds to access services even if they can physically get there. Survivors in rural areas may also have lower levels of literacy or knowledge of their rights and the services available to them. Similarly, displaced people can find it hard to travel to or access services. They may face language…

Programmes can help survivors with low confidence or information about how to access services by training local women, for example members of women rights organisations or paralegals, to help identify potential survivors and offer them support. This support should entail supporting survivors to understand the options available to them and respecting their decision. This support could include accompanying them to services so they are not alone during this process – this can also improve the accountability of service providers as survivor advocates can be trained on the quality of services…

Programmes should consider providing financial support to survivors without financial means to access GBV services. It is important to remember that survivors with dependents or caregivers may need additional funding in order to access services, for example if they need to buy tickets to travel on public transport. It is also important to consider the location of these funds and consider options to locate small funds at community level which survivor advocates can access to provide survivors with transport, shelter and food costs, and to accompany them where appropriate.

Children and adolescents have distinct needs that require different solutions to those of adults. Child and adolescent survivors of GBV may face barriers to accessing information about services and funds to access those services. They may also be particularly fearful of reporting incidences of GBV and seeking help, especially if they do not have a safe place to go to. In the case of the sexual abuse of adolescent girls, they may fear being blamed for the abuse. In addition, services may be designed with adult survivors in mind, meaning children are unable to access them without missing school…

Programmes should budget for producing and disseminating information about how survivors can access services in a variety of formats. For example:

Documents with information and instructions as a series of images to support those with limited literacy.
Easy Read documents can help people with learning and processing impairments access information about GBV services. 
Documents in a variety of relevant languages can improve access to information for displaced people who do not speak the local language. 
Documents in online and paper formats gives survivors flexibility about whether to…

It is essential that programme designers gain a comprehensive understanding of survivor decision-making around reporting and the barriers they face in accessing services. During the programme design phase, teams should work with survivors to conduct this barrier analysis and to co-develop strategies to address these barriers and ensure the programme is able to maximise the number and diversity of survivors it reaches, paying particular attention to reaching marginalised groups and leaving no one behind. 

The data gathered during the service mapping can be used to help inform both the design of a new service or programme and also to support programmes to develop clear referral pathways. Clear referral pathways will help new programmes or services connect survivors to other services that they may need access to. The following is an example of the type of information a programme might want to collect in order to support them to refer survivors to other services.

Organisation name
Focal point
Contact details
Services available
Hours of operation
Any requirements or…

Deciding which questions to include in a mapping will depend on your context, resources, and scope of programme. Some key questions to consider include but are not limited to:

What types of services currently exist? How many of each?
Who are the actors proving services (government? CSOs?)
Are these services accessible to everyone, including people living in vulnerable situations?
What are the specific context barriers to accessing these services?
What is the quality of the services provided?
Do these services take a survivor-centred approach to delivery?
Is an integrated…

There are a range of ways to identify existing VAWG response services during a service mapping process. Which method/methods are most effective will depend on your context and available resources. Ensure that you actively seek out the experiences of diverse survivors such as survivors with disabilities, LBT survivors, refugee survivors and survivors from persecuted ethnicities during your mapping. Without considering the availability of services for diverse survivors, your mapping of services will be incomplete. Some approaches to gathering information include:

Conducting an online search…

Supporting survivors of VAWG to recover from violence requires a holistic approach that ensures their access to a broad range of services. Mapping should consider as many services as possible to help identify gaps in provision and opportunities for new programmes to link to existing services. Services to consider include, but are not limited, to: 

Health Services, including: hospitals, health clinics (public and private), mobile clinics, sexual and reproductive health clinics, school health clinics
Police, courts and legal services, including: specialist police units for women and…