Welcome to Digna
The Canadian Centre of Expertise on the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.
Our goal is to help Canadian international development and humanitarian organizations improve their ability to PSEA, towards their program participants, particularly women and girls. We aim to increase awareness of, access to, and use of gender-responsive policies and good practices to PSEA.
New training coming up!
Reporting mechanisms and community engagement
This training will be divided into four modules that will help you explore barriers, learn from good practices, and develop your own reporting mechanisms, considering the communities you work with.
Module 1: Reporting process, barriers and solutions to overcoming barriers (3.5 hours)
Module 2: Good practices for reporting and responding to sexual violence (3.5 hours)
Module 3: Developing a sexual violence reporting mechanism for your organization (3.5 hours)
Module 4: Community engagement (4 hours)
The training will be in English, with a bilingual facilitator and French materials.
For more information, please click on the link below.
Digna's PSEA Organizational Assessment Tool
Every organization has the obligation to think about the implications of their work, and the safety and well-being of the people they are working with. Are you sure your organization is not putting your program participants at serious risk of sexual exploitation or abuse by your staff, volunteers, and partners?
The 2022 PSEA Organizational Assessment Tool is available now.
Digna's Directory of PSEA Service Providers
Digna has collected a growing list of PSEA service providers across Canada and around the world. The list includes professionals specialized in training, safeguarding, investigations, complaints and reporting mechanisms, and many other specializations. These professionals have undergone a quality assurance process to assess their capacity*. The list will grow rapidly in the coming months as we assess more professionals, and we will explore including SEA survivor support services. Make sure to check back regularly!
The database includes a filter-search system that will help you find what you are looking for easily. For example, you will be able to search for professionals by their kind of expertise, their areas of specialty, their working languages, their gender, and by other categories. If you need a guide on how to use this database, please click on the tabs below Organization Support Services.
Featured Documents
Our second case study showcases the experience of an international development agency undergoing a sexual exploitation and abuse investigation.
In this case study, you will find the results of the investigation into an allegation that a community volunteer had been demanding sexual relationships in exchange for livelihood support, or for the inclusion of local community members’ names in project activities and/or benefits. There are some recommendations provided by the SEA investigator, the tools developed during the investigation process, and the agency’s lessons learned.
In July, we started publishing a series of case studies developed in collaboration with Cooperation Canada’s membership. The first of this series showcases the experience of the British Columbia Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC) in developing a policy to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse.
The materials provide a comprehensive overview of the process of constructing a PSEA-dedicated policy, including good practice, lessons learned, and working with local communities and partners.
This guide was developed to support organizations working to strengthen their safeguarding policies, procedures and practices to prevent bullying, harassment, abuse and exploitation, and to appropriately respond when said instances do occur. Building on international standards and evolving good practices on safeguarding, this resource offers guidance on both content and process – the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of strengthening policies, procedures and practices. The guide also aims to support membership-based CSOs looking for ways to support their members in their efforts on safeguarding, and offers peer learning on how to advance the conversation on safeguarding as a sector.
Access our Resource Library
Did you know that Digna has a resource library with over 200 PSEA resources?
We compiled examples of Organizational Policies from Canadian CSOs, as well as examples of Codes of conduct that explicitly prohibit sexual exploitation and abuse to help Canadian organizations develop their own. We also have code of conduct templates that will help you clearly state your expectations for staff, volunteers and partners.
At our resource library you will also find available training, examples of digital media and much more!
Join our
Online Community
We encourage anyone from a Canadian organization to join the Digna online portal to stay connected and engage with Canadian professionals working to prevent and address sexual exploitation and abuse.