Webinar | The Pathways Between Natural Disasters and Violence Against Children—A conversation between research and practice

To find the related research article and blog post, click here. 

The structure of child protection programming during humanitarian emergencies is based upon the principle of increased risk of violence. Humanitarian programmatic interventions often use the same models for armed conflict and natural disasters. Little is understood on how they may differ, and the bulk of the current evidence focuses on situations of armed conflict.

This webinar will present a conversation between practitioners from UNICEF and IFRC and researchers from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Columbia University on the interaction between natural disasters and violence. It will present research findings from a global systematic review on the pathways between natural disasters and violence against children, discuss innovative programming in the Asia/Pacific region to prevent sexual and gender-based violence during natural disasters and discuss areas of development for knowledge and programming. 

Moderator:
Sonia Rastogi, Gender-Based Violence Knowledge Management Specialist, UNICEF

Speakers:
Runjini Raman, Senior Protection, Gender, and Inclusion Officer, IFRC
Ilan Cerna-Turoff, Ph.D. researcher, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Hanna-Tina Fischer, DrPH researcher, Columbia University

Biographies:
Sonia Rastogi is the GBV in Emergencies Knowledge Management Specialist with UNICEF. She manages M&E, knowledge generation and research efforts related to GBV risk mitigation within UNICEF and as part of the inter-agency GBV Guidelines initiative launched in 2015. She is a public health practitioner with expertise implementing GBV, WASH, education and livelihoods programming in complex emergency settings. She holds a Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
 
Runjini Raman is the Asia Pacific Senior Protection, Gender and Inclusion Officer and Sexual and Gender-based Violence Advisor for the IFRC. Previously she worked in disaster management for the City of New York. Runjini has worked with the IFRC to conduct research on SGBV in Laos, Philippines, Indonesia and, most recently, Cambodia and Viet Nam. She continues to support all protection, gender and inclusion work in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ilan Cerna-Turoff has worked for over ten years conducting research on child and adolescent health and child protection, with a focus on vulnerable groups and humanitarian settings. He has conducted child protection research in numerous contexts, including South Sudan, Indonesia, Uganda, Mali, and Colombia. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His research explores the relationship between natural disasters and violence against children and adapts statistical methods to study violence after displacement and disasters.
 
Hanna-Tina Fischer is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Population and Family Health of Colombia University, pursuing a DrPH in Leadership in Global Health and Humanitarian Systems. Her research focuses on the impact of adversity on children’s well-being and development, analyzing risk and resilience as functions of family-level system adaptation to crises. Tina has worked on issues of child welfare and protection in humanitarian and developmental contexts in Asia, Africa and Europe with a variety of United Nations agencies and non-governmental organisations.