One of the most important factors in conducting research is the consideration of ethics, especially when people are recruited as participants. There are certain ethical considerations that can be universally applied to research involving human subjects as well as additional considerations that are not covered by general guidelines and which may apply to research on sensitive research topics such as sexual violence and violence against women.

The links below are to guidelines and articles which are relevant to research on sexual violence.

• Investigating Harms, Causing Harm: Balancing the ethical pitfalls to doing research on sexual violence with women in conflict settings. Annalijn Conklin, AllianceDARC, 2007
• WHO Ethical and Safety Recommendations for Researching, Documenting and Monitoring Sexual Violence in Emergencies, WHO, 2007
• Ethical and Safety Recommendations for Research on Domestic Violence Against Women
• International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS)
• World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki
• So You Want to Involve Children in Research:  A toolkit supporting children's meaningful and ethical participation in research relating to violence against children, Save the Children, 2004
• Putting Women First: Ethical and Safety Recommendations for Research on Domestic Violence Against Women, WHO, 2003
• WHO Ethical and Safety Recommendations for Interviewing Trafficked Women, Zimmerman, C. and Watts C, 2003

• Cowburn M (2005) Confidentiality and public protection:  Ethical dilemmas in qualitative research with adult male sex offenders. Journal of Sexual Aggression.  Vol 11(1):49-63, 2005
• C Beyrer and N Kass, Human rights, politics, and reviews of research ethics, Lancet, Volume 360 Issue 9328, 2002 (Note: quick registration required for access)
• Ellsberg & Heise, Bearing witness: ethics in domestic violence research, Lancet Volume 359 Issue 9317, 2002 (Note: quick registration required for access)
• Jewkes R, Watts C, Abrahams N, Penn-Kekana L, Garcia-Moreno C. Ethical and methodological issues in conducting research on gender-based violence in Southern Africa. Reprod Health Matters, 8: 93-103, 2000.

• Research Ethics Training Curriculum, Family Health International