 Providing protection It's a duty that falls on all of us involved in crisis response. Migrants, displaced persons and the affected communities are all exposed to different risks including neglect, abuse, exploitation and various forms of violence. Sex, age, gender, ethnic allegiance are all factors that combined define the degree of exposure to risk. Education, networks, access to resources and other capacities also play a role as does location. People in a camp will be differently at risk than those in a spontaneous settlement, a transit centre at a border or in an urban setting. Finally, crisis induced factors such as family separation, loss and lack of resources and threats to life also have an influence on exposure to risk. Understanding how these factors interplay is critical to ensuring IOM crisis responses avoid unintended damage but rather build on individuals and communities self-protection capacities. What are the protection mainstreaming principles? 1. Prioritize safety and dignity and avoid causing harm. 2. Ensure meaningful access to services and assistance. 3. Encourage accountability to the affected population. 4. Foster participation and empowerment. IOM mainstreams protection across all of its sectors of assistance from camp coordination and camp management to health support, transport assistance and humanitarian border management. Moreover, some sectors like CCCM, cycle social support, land and property support, counter human trafficking in crisis, operationalize protection through targeted actions. Time, locations of distribution and the type of non-food items to be handed out at migrant transit centres are all agreed in consultation with the migrants themselves. Items are selected because they are both required and culturally appropriate. Priority access to emergency transportation is established for crisis affected migrants according to how fit and able to travel they are and how much they are at risk of violence and not on the basis of their age, sex, gender, race or ethnic affiliation. Within a cash transfer project for IDPs, IOM uses a multifunctional hotline for direct contacts with IDPs to ensure their complaints are addressed. Within a disarmament and demobilization program, the demobilized population participates on a voluntary basis to the design, monitoring and evaluation of the program, including validating the eligibility criteria for access to the program. To ensure that protection is mainstreamed at the strategic level, assessments and analysis have to integrate elements that help identify those at risk and so in need. Results have to be reflected in response planning, they must help prioritize affected individuals or groups and identify the nature of the intervention needed. At the operational level, the protection mainstreaming principles should become part of each phase of the project life cycle, project design and development, project endorsement, project implementation and monitoring and project evaluation. IOM has user friendly tools and training materials to help you do that at every stage of the project life cycle. Also, use available resources provided by key partners, clusters, working groups and participate in key coordination meetings where these approaches are discussed. Make sure you respond to crisis having these principles in mind.