PRESS BRIEFING ON ACTION TO ELIMINATE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING ON ACTION TO ELIMINATE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

At a Headquarters press briefing today to launch a new book, “With an End in Sight”, correspondents were told that a key to combating a social menace so globally pervasive as gender-based violence was to look at successful case studies and apply the experience in broader strategies. The book, by Cheywa Spindel, former Director of the Brazil office of the McArthur Foundation, outlines seven projects, in differing parts of the world, carried out by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) through its Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence Against Women.

The book was launched as part of an occasion designated, "16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence", which spans the period between the International Day for Eliminating Violence against Women (25 November) and Human Rights Day (10 December). Roxanne Carrillo, Human Rights Director of UNIFEM, introduced the book as a "presentation of how communities address a problem so pervasive". She said the seven case studies of representative initiatives were selected from more than 100 UNIFEM Trust Fund projects worldwide. The projects detailed were based in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Honduras, India, Kenya, Nigeria and the West Bank and Gaza. They addressed issues ranging from domestic violence to female genital mutilation and honour killings.

Ms. Carrillo recalled that the UNIFEM Trust Fund had been created in 1996 as a response to urgent calls for action at the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women. The Assembly had created the Fund so as to put in the hands of women the resources they needed to make changes. The Fund focused on putting the local experience into the larger organizational context.

Ms. Spindel summarized the book as an echo of the voices of both men and women who were on the front lines of working to end violence against women. The book's title, "With an End in Sight", indicated the belief of those workers that violence against women could be eliminated within their own lifetimes, if concerted efforts were made to implement practical strategies. The book, therefore, was a practical tool for the use of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in battling violence against women.

Ms. Spindel said the first common element among all the seven projects highlighted was the involvement of both men and women in the communities' initiatives to combat violence. In societies where female circumcision was practised, for example, men had made public agreements to not marry circumcised women, or to stand behind their sisters in breaking out of the ritual practice. The second unique element of the book was that the case study presentations focused on process rather than outcome. Certainly, "lessons learned" and "best practices" findings from studies were important, but this book was a step by step manual showing how communities had conceived, developed and implemented their initiatives. It gave an overview of the different strategies involved and how the strategies had been made to work.

UNIFEM Press Briefing - 2 - 7 December 2000

While the strategies were all different, she said, the book demonstrated similarities that had emerged. For example, one problem in stopping violence at various levels of society was to figure out how to implement agreements once they were negotiated. Contracts at various community levels had proven to work. In one project on domestic abuse, the husband had made a compact with the community chief, and other community members had helped enforce the agreement. In another study, an entire community had forged an agreement to support resistance to an honour killing of a woman.

Another similarity within all the strategies, she continued, was the recognition that institutions could be mobilized, that lobbying was an effective means to achieve change. Whether lobbying occurred at the local or broader institutional level, the power unleashed by institutionalizing an issue was enormous. It changed the very nature of the issue so that the agitators were "no longer just a group of angry women, but a group of angry judges, lawyers and politicians -- many of them men", she added.

Florence Butegwo, a consultant for UNIFEM, who recently returned from a training project for women judges in Africa, attested to the importance of working with institutions in context of society when dealing with female circumcision. She said she liked the book's title because the end was in sight on violence against women if the correct strategy was rooted in context, since the same strategy wouldn't work in two different places if the justification for the practice was different.

She said the Kenyan project, for example, had entailed the curtailing of genital mutilation in a society that viewed it as a rite of passage. There, the strategy had consisted of giving a ritual back to people when a traditional one had been taken away. It was a matter of "replacing" the dangerous practice with a healthful one. In that instance, a "circumcision with words" had been devised for the marking of the socially important passage from girlhood to womanhood.

A project in Uganda, on the other hand, had involved the question of social values, since the ritual embodied a social concept concerning a woman's wholesomeness. The objective there had been to identify alternative approaches to reinforcing female wholesomeness without cutting her up.

In still another project, the ritual had been seen as a health precaution, with the society believing a woman was vulnerable to diseases without the procedure. The strategy in that instance had involved education.

Ms. Butegwa said that in each of those situations, however, the role of institutions was paramount in bringing about change. When a society's burden for change was put on only one segment, the human rights perspective was missing and an important aspect of social life -- that governments have a responsibility in protecting their people and their human rights –- was not being recognized. That was why UNIFEM was training judges and why the Commonwealth Secretariat had taken the issue of violence against women as a main focus of activities and had developed an integrated approach.

"The problem of violence against women doesn't involve just issues concerning women, or health, or economics or politics", she said. The

UNIFEM Press Briefing - 3 - 7 December 2000

realization that the problem was multifaceted brought about the awareness that a solution involved multiple segments of government. The Commonwealth Secretariat's integrated approach was being implemented by eight countries, she added.

In response to a question, Ms. Carrillo noted that the UNIFEM Trust Fund was conducting projects all over the world, including in both developed and developing countries. Partnerships were also arising around similar strategies being jointly pursued by developing countries and others such as Australia, United Kingdom and other European states.

* *** *