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Introduction

Forms of Gender-based Violence and Their Consequences

Effects on Reproductive Health Decision-making

Effects on the Economics of Reproductive Health and Family Planning Service Delivery

Policy Reform Process

Developing National Policy

Building a Knowledge Base

Reproductive & Sexual Health

Information, Education & Communication & Advocacy

 Information, Education and Communication and Advocacy

Information, education, and communication (IEC) and advocacy have an important role in opening up public debate on the issue of gender violence.

The debate will need to engage all the key opinion-makers such as religious and community leaders, teachers, school administrators, politicians, and entertainers. Such a debate would aim to eventually shift gender-based violence from a taboo issue and a private matter to one that is an issue for public policy.

Building a constituency. The peculiar features of gender violence–high social acceptance and therefore low public visibility except for some sensational cases–heighten the need for building a critical mass of support. Such a constituency can keep the pressure on with campaigns to educate the public, and seek changes in policy and institutional culture to redress the serious grievances of abused women and girls. The catalytic efforts of women’s NGOs to promote recognition of reproductive and sexual health and rights need to be scaled up and their concerns to become of interest to society as a whole. Building up these small and under-funded networks is an important part of advocacy strategy.

Involving young people. A special effort should focus on adolescents. Adolescents have very few role models of male-female relations based on equality, mutual respect, and harmony; and they need to develop communication and negotiation skills that will enable them to have intimate relations reflecting these values, particularly in their reproductive and sexual life. Much of what they see only serves to reinforce gender violence as an acceptable part of their lives. Adolescent boys must be taught that violence against women or girls is not part of their "birthright". Adolescent girls need to be taught about the nature of gender violence–particularly the socialization process that leads girls to accept this violence as part of being female. They need to be helped to develop self-confidence, self-esteem, and awareness of their reproductive rights. Population/family life education and sex education programmes need to focus on these concerns. Peers and peer counsellors are an important means of reaching out to youth.

Involving men. A large part of the social acceptance of gender-based violence comes from men who essentially see abuse as a male "prerogative". Therefore, changing the mindset of male partners is an important part of the equation for achieving harmony and mutual respect in gender relations.

Community-based workers and traditional birth attendants. Monitors of the effects of the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action report impressive gains in legislation about women’s human rights and gender-based violence. Yet, for these laws to be socially rooted, values at the community level still have to change. In many countries, the practice of customary laws still supersedes civil law, leaving a legal quandary there is little political will to challenge.

Sensitizing local, community-based workers and social workers to the health costs of gender violence can yield real dividends in eventually changing community values. Traditional birth attendants and traditional healers could well serve as agents of change by informing women about their reproductive and legal rights, and working with health workers to reach out to the community.

Creating a public will for change. Real and lasting change in social perceptions of gender-based violence can only come from within. Community-based organizations are already providing medical, legal and counselling services for victims of gender violence and advocating changes in existing laws and customs through education and lobbying. In many countries, these organizations have served to focus political attention on this long-neglected problem.

A number of strategic advocacy and critical-mass-building measures are proposed to counter public tolerance of gender violence:

At the government policy level, coordinating the efforts of all the players in the legal, health, and education systems in a national strategy;

  • Developing alliances with parliamentarians, women’s NGOs, religious leaders, teachers, and entertainers;
  • Urging the media to promote positive images of gender roles and relations between men and women and to remove existing biases;
  • Ensuring that school curricula and teaching materials do not include gender bias and stereotyping;
  • Training teachers and educators to be sensitive to signs of gender violence in the school.

Developing Culturally
Appropriate Alternatives to FGM

The innovative Reproductive, Educative, and Community Health (REACH) project focuses on the reduction of female genital mutilation in the Kapchorwa district of Uganda. The overall aim Ļis to increase people’s awareness of the harmfulness of the practice and to encourage the development of alternative and culturally valid ways of performing rites of passage". The project takes a multi-pronged approach:

  • Information, education and communication programmes targeting women, opinion leaders, policy makers, health providers, religious leaders, husbands, adolescents, and the circumcisers themselves;
  • Research on the extent and type of the practice and the reasons behind it;
  • Policy and legislative initiatives to urge outlawing the practice;
  • Training of health care providers to recognize and treat complications of FGM;
  • Psychological counselling for emotionally disturbed circumcised women and girls;
  • Alternative income-generation activities for circumcisers;
  • Strengthening positive traditional practices regarding rites of passage and celebrations;
  • Resource mobilization, in-country and external, to eradicate FGM.
  • In the first two years, the combined effect of all these activities has been a 36 per cent reduction of FGM in the communities where the project was implemented.