Additional Context: Women for Women International is an international NGO supporting women in conflict-affected countries. Its USAID-funded "Putting Survivors at the Center" project was terminated in February 2025. The project worked in the DRC, Iraq, and South Sudan — contexts selected for the severity of conflict, high prevalence of gender-based violence, and limited availability of survivor services. It aimed to strengthen referrals from health centers, local organizations, and institutions that do not specialize in GBV care, addressing both service gaps and the stigma that deters survivors from approaching dedicated GBV clinics. The organization reported that suspension in the project's third year forfeits the opportunity to establish and socialize those referral processes.

The organization cited the following needs in the three countries: 1.3 million people in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region require GBV services, more than half of them internally displaced people or returnees; 6 million women, girls, men, and boys in the DRC require GBV risk mitigation, response, or prevention services, with humanitarian actors supporting roughly 30,000 survivors annually; and in South Sudan, 30 percent of women and girls have experienced non-partner sexual violence, with an estimated 50 to 70 percent experiencing intimate partner violence.

Source: Women for Women International