For mainstream humanitarian approaches significantly to increase the effectiveness of prevention, mitigation and response to GBV, the 2005 focus on sexual violence cannot be lost. However, the range of victims and survivors that are not just recognized but also addressed needs to be more inclusive – most urgently male and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) victims and survivors – and a range of non-sexual forms of GBVmust also become the target of humanitarian attention. To achieve this, the importance and appropriateness of pursuingmale–female gender equality when people are in crisis must be questioned and the primacy of humanitarian principles must be reaffirmed; static models of gender vulnerability must be replaced with analysis of situational vulnerability; opportunistic use of statistics must yield to consistent concern with establishing relevant data; and the concentration of expertise in the hands of “gender experts” cannot be allowed to substitute the larger task of attitudinal change in humanitarian personnel as a whole.
