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Article History

Received: 24 January 2020

Accepted: 11 August 2020

First Online: 28 August 2020

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: Approval for the research was granted by the Research Ethics Committee at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh based upon a statement of an ethical code of conduct signed by all members of the research team, relevant information sheets and details of securing informed consent for participation (confirmed through signature, thumb print or – on request – verbally). Development and monitoring of these protocols involved a study advisory group, which included academic colleagues from the Department of Politics and Public Policy at the American University of Kurdistan and the Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies at Duhok University.

: Consent procedures permitted use of verbatim quotations from participants in suitably anonymised form.

: At the time of the study MS was employed by the agency Tearfund as Technical Lead (Sexual Violence in Humanitarian Response), which included supporting needs assessment and programme design for interventions to address gender-based violence and support conflict affected populations in humanitarian contexts such as northern Iraq.