Safeguarding and ethical representation in humanitarian communications: a reflective review of an international NGO’s post-disaster practice (2023–2025)

This article examines the media and institutional communications produced by the Türkiye Country Office of a global international non-governmental organisation (INGO) working in the field of child rights. The timeframe covers a two-year period (2023–2025) following the devastating earthquakes of February 2023. The study shows how ethical awareness and safeguarding literacy are built in institutional communication practices during crises and disasters, how these mechanisms operate and how they strengthen over time.

This is not an external audit, performance measurement or retrospective evaluation. Instead, it describes how communication processes evolve through institutional learning, ethical sensitivity and multi-actor coordination in dynamic crisis environments. By focusing on the development of ‘good practices’ in the humanitarian sector, the analysis explores the interaction and fluid boundaries between crisis communications and operational safeguarding.

Content production and approval mechanisms

In the post-disaster period, the media and communications content of the reviewed INGO was subject to a multi-layered, multi-actor institutional approval process. Raw material collected from the field and drafted content pass through the following stages:

1. Country Office Media and Communications Officer (content production and initial check).
2. Media and Communications Specialist/Manager (strategic and ethical evaluation).
3. Programme/Operations Director (institutional alignment and strategic approval).

Following this internal approval mechanism at the country office level, the contents are uploaded to the organisation’s Global Content Hub. They become available for use across the global network only after receiving final approval from the Global Communications and Safeguarding Unit.

During the initial phases of the earthquake response, there was a significant increase in requests for high-visibility content for global fundraising campaigns. This placed intense time pressure on communications teams, forcing them to find a continuous and dynamic balance between the need for speed/visibility and the strict principles of ethical representation and child safeguarding.

Evolution of communications and safeguarding practices over time

As the response transitioned to the medium- and long-term rehabilitation phase, communications and media production processes became more structured and systematic. Over time, the following practices became permanent institutional reflexes:

• Pre-field risk analysis: conducting site-specific risk assessments with the joint participation of communications and safeguarding teams prior to any media or filming activities.
• Standardisation of question sets: reviewing and filtering interview questions with the Safeguarding Specialist before filming to protect affected populations and prevent secondary trauma during storytelling.
• Strengthening consent mechanisms: revising and reinforcing informed consent forms in terms of content, scope, child-friendly formats and compliance with local data protection laws (such as the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK)).
• Pre-production integration: shifting coordination between communications and media teams, field programme teams and safeguarding units to the pre-production planning stage, rather than running it as a post-production approval check.

This structural shift demonstrates how ethical representation is no longer treated merely as a final check of the end product (photo, video, text). Instead, it has become an inseparable part of the initial planning and decision-making stages of content production.

Imagery use and informed consent

The way vulnerable groups, particularly children, are represented in visual materials has become more context-sensitive and detailed over time. Key developments at the implementation level include:

• Obtaining written consent from individuals and their legal guardians remained a strict requirement for all visual and audio productions where faces are clearly identifiable.
• For side-profile, back-view, silhouette or blurred images, dynamic assessment processes were implemented based on local risk analyses and the specific purpose of the content, moving beyond standard global guidelines.
• A constructive dialogue was established between the visual preferences of the global network and the ethical sensitivities of the local office.

This is a dynamic area of institutional learning where cultural, legal and ethical contexts are analysed, rather than compromised.

Safeguarding-oriented content review mechanisms

Safeguarding occupies a central role in communications materials that involve sensitive human stories and in-depth interviews. The following mechanisms have been institutionalised to support this:

• Materials addressing sensitive thematic areas – such as unaccompanied children, gender-based violence or severe trauma stories – must be submitted for a technical evaluation by the Safeguarding Specialist before reaching the relevant director for approval.
• The methodology used in storytelling has been restructured to protect the agency and dignity of affected populations, positioning them as active subjects rather than mere ‘victims’.
• Background risk analysis reports have been systematically attached to every shared success story or field report.

Capacity-building with local partners

This methodological shift in communications and safeguarding has not been limited to the INGO’s internal teams. As part of the localisation strategy, it has been extended to local civil society partners who co-manage field operations. Over the past year:

• Comprehensive training modules based on the organisation’s global ethical communications and safeguarding policies were designed by the media and communications teams.
• In addition to theoretical frameworks, training provided practical technical skills, such as ethical photography techniques in the field, child-centred storytelling and affected populations’ safety during crises.
• Regular monthly monitoring and coordination meetings with local partners were initiated to track communication practices, fostering learning and capacity growth.

This approach treats local partners not as entities to be audited for deficiencies, but as strategic actors strengthened through a shared ethical language.

External stakeholders and design processes

Sensitivities regarding safeguarding and ethical representation extend beyond internal processes and local partners to include creative production stakeholders, such as external creative agencies and designers. Tangible experiences addressed and resolved during this process include:

• Reconstructing visual language: visual drafts for fundraising and donation-driven campaigns, which often risked reinforcing unequal power relations between the organisation and the communities it sought to represent or over-dramatised vulnerability (similar to ‘poverty porn’), were reshaped into a rights-based language through joint interventions by communications and safeguarding teams.
• Reviewing creative materials: illustrations and graphic designs prepared by external providers for educational or psychosocial support materials were scanned and revised for child protection risks, such as problematic physical distance representations between adults and children.

These examples prove that the safeguarding approach is not a bureaucratic hurdle that restricts creative processes; rather, it serves as a constructive guide that enhances the quality, inclusivity and safety of the content produced.

Child participation and extending the concept of consent

Child participation and a rights-based perspective in communication processes have been expanded beyond traditional limits. The following innovative steps have been taken:

• Even for tangible materials produced by children during field workshops, such as drawings and artwork, specific material consent is now obtained from both the children and their families before sharing them on digital platforms. While obtaining material consent of this kind is not a universally mandated requirement across the global humanitarian sector, its adoption at the local level – driven by the organisation’s own safeguarding team – demonstrates a genuine commitment to ethical practice. As a result, child participation moves beyond tokenistic inclusion and becomes grounded in the everyday application of rights-based principles.

Strengthening global safeguarding capacity and language accessibility

These country office-level practices are directly fed by the structural capacity-building and institutional learning processes run by the organisation globally. Within the INGO, safeguarding training is a core competency that must be periodically renewed by all staff and consultants. Within this framework, managed through the institutional learning management system (LMS), existing safeguarding and ethical communication training packages were translated into nine languages (Arabic, Spanish, French, Romanian, Lithuanian, Polish, Ukrainian, Turkish and Russian) and made globally accessible in 10 languages including the original English.

Increasing language accessibility ensures that knowledge of safeguarding and ethical representation is not limited to English-speaking staff. It allows local experts, partners and support teams to internalise these principles in their native languages with proper conceptual and contextual depth. This helps position safeguarding as a shared operational culture across the organisation.

Good practice models: case studies in social media communications

This section presents selected good practice models from social media communication processes managed during and after the crisis.

• Case I (acute crisis/earthquake period): In the initial months after the disaster, communications activities prioritised text-heavy updates, graphic designs and general representative photos of humanitarian teams in the field, rather than images of children or individuals that could deepen the perception of victimisation. This model ensured an uninterrupted flow of vital information during the crisis while preventing identity disclosure and exposure to traumatising imagery.
• Case II (post-crisis first anniversary): Content produced for the first anniversary of the earthquake focused on children’s psychosocial recovery, their creative artwork and empowerment stories, instead of themes of destruction or helplessness. In the imagery used, children’s faces, identifying features or specific location details were anonymised.
• Case III (current period/long-term rehabilitation): Recent communication materials presenting the outputs of two-year post-crisis projects highlighted regional development and community resilience messages. Representative and wide-angle field photos ensured that individuals appeared from behind or as silhouettes, maintaining the highest standards of personal data protection and ethical safeguarding.

Conclusion: communications as institutional learning

This review demonstrates that communications and safeguarding practices developed by an INGO in a crisis context are not a static set of rules. Instead, they are a dynamic institutional learning process formed through field experience, testing and adaptation. Even under the most challenging disaster conditions, principles of ethical representation, informed consent and ‘do no harm’ can be integrated into institutional communications.

This review provides a practical model for constructing ethical boundaries and protective shields in humanitarian communications, offering a field-based, concrete contribution to ethical communications debates within the global humanitarian literature.

Dilhun Develi is a researcher and communications specialist. She has a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and a Master’s degree in Communication Strategies from the University of Padua. Following field experience working with migrants and refugees, she gained extensive operational experience in humanitarian communications through her work with an international non-governmental organisation (INGO) and a global media outlet.