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.
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
On February 18th, 2021, Digna hosted a webinar on reducing recruitment risks for the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse. Learn from our speakers on some ways you can enhance your recruitment practices while ensuring you are respecting Canadian legal frameworks.
Digna’s virtual conference on how the international cooperation sector can prevent and address sexual exploitation and abuse took place on January 27th, 2021. The conference included sector leaders, government officials, and PSEA champions who discussed how we as a sector can prevent and address sexual exploitation and abuse.
“Canada strongly condemns all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse in international assistance.” Global Affairs Canada has established two requirements for organizations that receive funding under Canada’s International Development and Humanitarian Assistance Envelope.
The Leaders’ Pledge on Preventing and Addressing Sexual Misconduct represents our shared commitment as Canada’s global development and humanitarian leaders to ensure the full implementation of practices and policies that will protect and respond to our own staff, volunteers and the communities we serve.
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.
Featured Documents
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.
The guide was developed by Forus with the Financial support of the European Union, the French Development Agency, (AFD), and Digna.
Are you trying to develop a code of conduct (CoC) that addresses sexual exploitation and abuse in your organization? AQOCI has created a CoC template to help organizations meet GAC’s requirements regarding PSEA
AQOCI developed this organizational Checklist on Sexual Violence to support organizations in their efforts to strengthen practices to PSEA
How can international cooperation organizations provide better support to a victim/survivor of sexual violence? This brief gives a non-exhaustive picture of best practices for providing support medically, psychosocially and throughout the legal process.
“The Resource and Support Hub (RSH) is developing a series of five online training modules called Safeguarding Matters. The modules use scenario-based learning to tell the story of a fictitious civil society organization called Family Health Frontiers (FHF). Over the five modules, learners join the FHF team as they seek to become a safer organization and navigate safeguarding challenges.” Module 1 and module 2 are available now on their website!
Bond developed a suite of core policies that can be adapted or used as they are to strengthen your safeguarding framework. “Together they cover the basics that you need to have in place in your organization.”
Stay up to date with Digna’s News. Access our published e-Newsletters.
Access our Resource Library
Did you know that Digna has a resource library with over 100 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!
Would you like to be featured on Digna's online database?
You/your organization can be featured in a list of identified resources and professionals that can offer support services to Digna’s network of Canadian non-governmental organizations working in international cooperation in their efforts in PSEA.