The Drum Beat Archives

Gender-Based Violence Communication

Deanna.Brotherston — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:49:15 -0800

This issue includes:

PREVENTING GBV in practice.
How has The CI changed your work? CI STORIES.
INVOLVING MEN as partners.
Vote in a POLL on marginalised girls.
GBV affecting YOUTH.
See a GBV-related Africa-specific Soul Beat NEWSLETTER.
GBV GUIDES and TOOLS.
SUBSCRIBE to C-Change Picks e-mag: gender norms and more.

This issue of The Drum Beat focuses on gender-based violence (GBV) as it affects women and girls. According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), "Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions... [affecting] at least one out of every three women around the world..." [For additional statistics and context, visit the UNIFEM website]. During this year's 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign, held annually since 1991 from November 25 to December 10, The Communication Initiative (CI) has assembled in this issue a selection of summaries, part of larger pool of knowledge available on the CI sites, addressing: violence prevention, involving men as partners, GBV affecting youth, and guides and tools for organisations working to prevent GBV against women.

PREVENTING GBV IN PRACTICE

1. Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender Violence

In 1991, international participants in the United States (US)-based Center for Women's Global Leadership (CWGL)'s first annual Women's Global Leadership Institute conceived of and created an annual international campaign to communicate this message: violence against women (VAW) violates human rights. Each year from November 25 to December 10, participants use the "16 Days of Action against Gender Violence" campaign as an organising strategy to call for elimination of all forms of VAW (whether in the public or private sphere).

Contact: cwgl@rci.rutgers.edu

2. Say NO - UNiTE to End Violence against Women - Global

This global platform aims to trigger and highlight actions on ending violence against women. It provides tools to initiate or join advocacy and awareness raising activities around the world, and counts and communicates them in real time. As indicated by the campaign: "Help us reach our goal to count 100,000 actions to end violence against women by March 2010. By creating a profile on saynotoviolence.org you can let us know about your actions and inspire others to join you."

Contact: Urjasi Rudra urjasi.rudra@unifem.org

3. Solidarity for African Women's Rights (SOAWR) - Africa

Launched in 2005, SOAWR is a coalition of 30 civil society organisations across Africa working to ensure that the Protocol to the African Union (AU) Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa remains on the agenda of policy makers and to urge African leaders to safeguard women's rights through ratification and implementation of the Protocol. The coalition uses media, new technologies, and advocacy to achieve universal ratification of the AU Protocol. To cite only 2 examples: as part of the "colour card campaign", SOAWR issued coloured cards to member states during African Union summits (green for countries that had ratified the Protocol; yellow for those that had signed but not ratified it; and red for those that had not signed it); and the mobile phone campaign "Text now 4 women's rights" enabled thousands of African cell phone users to join the campaign and be updated on the progress of ratification.

Contact: info@soawr.org

4. Violence against Women in Melanesia and East Timor: Building on Global and Regional Promising Practices

This study from the Office of Development Effectiveness, AusAID, Australia, 2008, is part of their efforts to assess the effectiveness of current approaches to addressing violence against women and girls in 5 of Australia's close partner countries: Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and East Timor. Common customary practices and attitudes that put women at risk of violence in this region include: bride-price (price paid by husbands for their wives); economic dependence of women on men; and compensation and reconciliation to maintain peace between groups and their leaders ("injuries against a woman or girl are dealt with by compensating the male who had rights to her (father, brother, husband). Women are unhappy about family members benefiting from their injuries and feel it undermines their future safety."). The document offers a framework for action and some promising practices.

5. Gender Development Project (GDP) - Indonesia and Kenya

GDP is an effort to address the increased vulnerability of women and girls to HIV/AIDS through evidence-based approaches. It is an initiative of STOP AIDS NOW! (SAN!), an independent organisation formed in 2000 by 5 Dutch donor organisations seeking to work together towards a world without AIDS. GDP seeks to add value to the HIV/AIDS and gender policies of SAN! partners by identifying promising local-level strategies and interventions for HIV prevention that integrate promotion of egalitarian gender-based attitudes, behaviours, and norms, and women's rights. It is being implemented in Kenya (throughout all 8 provinces except North Eastern Province) and Indonesia (Java and Papua).

Contact: Jennifer Bushee jbushee@stopaidsnow.nl

6. Umoja Uaso Women's Group - Kenya

A sister organisation of the US-based human rights organisation MADRE, the Umoja Uaso Women's Group is a community of Indigenous Samburu women formed in 1990 in Kenya by 15 women who were rejected by their husbands and forced out of their homes after being raped. These women founded Umoja as a safe community for GBV survivors. Living and working together, the women of Umoja combat discrimination, poverty, and violence against women, and develop increasing economic autonomy in an effort to enable them to avoid dependence on abusive men.

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