After 30 years of experience in preventing and responding to sexual exploitation and abuse (PRSEA), Victoria joined WHO on 1 May 2023 with the conviction that the Organization has the “commitment, resources and agency to move forward on this issue and make a big difference.”
Victoria has dedicated her career to tackling sexual misconduct. She led on defining and delivering Oxfam International’s safeguarding action plan in 2018 for victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) during a time of intense global scrutiny surrounding that organization’s actions around sexual abuse by its staff in Haiti.
Her experience also spans UN agencies, such as UN Women in the Jordan country office, and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), where she provided 25 countries with leadership and technical support for inter-agency coordination and collaboration on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA). She also led on PSEA for 22 000 staff in more than 100 countries at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Moreover, her background as a social worker and her experience in victim and survivor support have provided her with the critical knowledge to understand victim and survivor needs, and the tools to support them.
At WHO, Victoria’s initial regional focus will revolve around putting in place key strategies from WHO’s Year-1 Implementation Plan of its larger Three-Year Strategy on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct.
WHO has invested in dedicated regional coordinators in its six regional offices to lead work on preventing and responding to sexual misconduct (PRS). Victoria, assigned to the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO), is one of five such experts already in post. WHO regional coordinators work with the global PRS department in Geneva and through a network of more than 400 country focal points and experts across the world.
Her first step will be to assess the capacities of implementing partners to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment in this region (PRSEAH). Many operations in the Eastern Mediterranean region are carried out by implementing partners, and this creates a heightened risk to the overall safety of people WHO seeks to support. To adress this, Victoria’s key focus will be on supporting the development of a PRSEAH risk framework and ongoing monitoring of those risks in every country.
Within the region will be six PRSEAH country coordinators working in high-priority countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Syria. These country coordinators will be responsible for coordinating and strengthening the implementation of PRSEAH interventions. Through workshops and trainings, Victoria will bring together all regional PRSEAH specialists to better understand their different challenges, operating contexts and development of PRSEAH action plans.
“I will have to visit the different countries and build relationships and trust,” Victoria said. For her, understanding the different country and operating contexts will help WHO know “what it can do better but also that if something happens, there has been enough awareness that people in communities we serve know what to report, and how and who to report to.”
As several countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region operate in emergency contexts, Victoria must navigate this terrain as well. Her experience at Oxfam gave her a deep knowledge of emergency situations.
“In my past assignments, I drew upon my strong problem solving and decision-making skills, and sector expertise in influencing diverse stakeholders,” Victoria explained. “This resulted in the development of a system-wide safeguarding strategy, improved capacity of staff, policy and enhanced culture.”
This experience translates to an understanding of how to engage with countries assessed as high-risk for sexual misconduct in her region on PRSEAH. As Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan are actively campaigning and vaccinating against polio, WHO has deployed 800 000 vaccinators into communities. Victoria wants to make sure that the Organization’s objectives of ensuring good health for all can continue in an environment with zero tolerance for sexual misconduct.
To achieve this, Victoria puts prevention at the heart of her work. “If we can emphasize prevention in country work plans, we will be better equipped to identify risks and deliver and put in place mitigation strategies. And if we can raise awareness from the beginning, then everyone will know what the acceptable behaviours are and what actions to take if there is an incident of sexual exploitation or abuse.”