Last reviewed October 2026
Our safeguarding commitments
The standards MSRI holds its staff, volunteers and partners to, and how to raise a concern.
Our position
MSRI works with children, with women and girls who have experienced violence, and with people who are displaced and often without legal status. That work creates a duty of care that cannot be delegated to a policy document.
The Institute’s stated position is that every person’s dignity and fundamental rights are worth protecting, regardless of legal status, ethnicity or nationality. Safeguarding is how that position is enforced in practice rather than merely asserted.
Who this applies to
- All MSRI employees, including those on temporary and part-time contracts.
- Refugee teachers and project personnel engaged by MSRI.
- Volunteers and interns working with or alongside MSRI programmes.
- Contractors, consultants and partner organisations delivering work with MSRI.
What we expect
- Never being alone with a child in a closed or unobserved setting unless it is part of an agreed and recorded activity.
- No physical, emotional or sexual abuse, exploitation or neglect of any person, in any form.
- No sexual relationship between staff or volunteers and a beneficiary, regardless of the apparent age of consent. The power imbalance makes genuine consent impossible.
- No exchange of money, goods, services or favours for sexual acts, and no exploitative relationships of any kind.
- Treating beneficiaries with dignity: no degrading treatment, no discriminatory language, and no disclosure of personal information about a beneficiary to anyone outside the programme.
- Photographing or recording beneficiaries only with informed consent, and never where it identifies an individual without that consent.
- Reporting any concern, suspicion or allegation immediately, including where it concerns a colleague.
Programme practices that reduce risk
MSRI’s published programme design incorporates practices intended to reduce the opportunity for harm.
- Work with women and girls takes place in safe spaces designed so participants can speak freely, with case coordination and referral pathways to professional counselling.
- Protection work is community-based. Facilitators for the EMAP programme are selected from refugee communities and trained and supported to work within their own communities.
- Programme staff receive training on gender-based violence, human rights, safeguarding and referral practice.
- Cases are handled with a documented process, with referral to UNHCR and other partners where appropriate.
Awaiting MSRI’s confirmation
This page describes the standards MSRI’s published materials and programme design indicate. MSRI’s own safeguarding policy, code of conduct, whistleblowing procedure and incident-reporting statistics are not published on its website, and we have not reproduced or invented them.
MSRI should review this page and supply the current policy documents before it is relied on for due diligence. The full policy is being prepared for /p/safeguarding-policy, which stays private until MSRI publishes it.
Reporting a concern
If you have a concern about the safety or wellbeing of anyone in contact with MSRI, please tell us. You do not need to be certain, and you do not need to have proof. Concerns are treated confidentially and investigated.
If a person is in immediate danger, contact the Malaysian emergency services on 999 first.
Email admin@msri.org.my with the subject line “Safeguarding concern”, or call (+603)-4252 8699.
Questions about this page? Email admin@msri.org.my.