gender-based violence - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

By PAULA DUPRAZ-DOBIAS and JACOB GOLDBERG

Services under threat after UN emergency funding for gender-based violence runs out

THE day after Luz Vargas crossed the border from Venezuela into Colombia, a group of men forced her into a car and told her to forget her family in Venezuela. She would not be able to contact them again, they said. Vargas thought they were joking. The former radiology assistant, now 38, decided in 2018 to leave her three children in Caracas to find a better-paying radiology job in Colombia. A friend arranged the transportation. She soon realised that her friend worked for traffickers. “They took my documents, locked me in the room, and drugged me,” Vargas told The New…

Dec

2023

By BONFACE ORUCHO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

African attitudes towards Gender-Based Violence are evolving

NEWS

PUBLIC perceptions towards gender-based violence are shifting in Africa, according to a survey by Afrobarometer, a pan-African attitudes research company. The survey covering 39 countries in Africa, published on November 22, shows that “gender-based violence (GBV) is viewed by the majority of Africans as the most important women's rights-related issue that their government and society need to address.” The report underscores that 31% of respondents prioritize addressing GBV, placing it ahead of concerns like the scarcity of women in powerful positions (20%), inequalities in education (17%), and workplace disparities (16%). This shift in prioritization reflects a substantial change in societal…

Nov

2023

By ATIENO ODERA, BIRD STORY AGENCY

This runway model is campaigning against gender-based violence in the fashion industry

BEAUTY AND FASHION

ENTERING Watamu town in Kilifi County, north of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean, it is immediately apparent that an awareness of gender-based violence is widespread. The ‘RED CARD CAMPAIGN FASHION SHOW’ advertised loudly on a billboard at the town's entrance displays an image of international runway model Sharon Okubo. The RED CARD campaign is a symbolic call-out to get the wider society to get involved in penalising gender-based discrimination and violence. Started by the non-profit African Renaissance and Diaspora Networks (ARDN), Okubo is an ambassador for the campaign, working closely with models and designers who are survivors of gender-based violence.…

Sep

2023

By The African Mirror

The power of needlework: how embroidery is helping South African women tell unspeakable stories

BEAUTY AND FASHION

IN June 2020, three months after South Africa entered the first of a series of hard lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID, the country’s president Cyril Ramaphosa described men’s violence against women as a “second pandemic”. In the first three weeks of that lockdown the Gender Based Violence Command Centre, designed to support victims of gender-based violence (GBV), recorded more than 120,000 victims. Also in its 2019/2020 crimes statistics, the South African Police Services indicated that an average of 116 rape cases were reported each day. PULENG SEGALO, Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair, University of South Africa While South…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Libya fails to stop migrant detention abuses, as EU-backed returns soar

HUMAN RIGHTS

SARA CRETA ZINTAN, LibyaThe EU-backed Libyan Coast Guard has intercepted more than 13,000 asylum seekers and migrants at sea this year, preventing them from reaching Europe – already a greater number than in all of 2020. Those intercepted are returned to Libya and sent to detention centres where a well-documented cycle of extortion, torture, gender-based violence, and trafficking has been taking place for years. At the same time, the EU is facing intensifying scrutiny over its hand in the system due to its support for the Libyan Coast Guard – including the use of its aerial surveillance assets to coordinate interceptions and returns to…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

President pledges millions to fight GBV

NEWS

NITA BHALLA KENYA'S president pledged millions of dollars in state funds to help tackle a surge in gender-based violence during the pandemic, outlining plans to open women's shelters across the country and improve policing. Uhuru Kenyatta said crime statistics showed cases involving violence against women had almost doubled between January and June 2020 compared with the previous year. "Lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and the pandemic's social and economic impacts have increased exposure of women to physical, sexual and psychological violence, while at the same time limited their access to protective and recovery services," Kenyatta told a conference on gender…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Calls for women’s shelters in Kenya

NEWS

NITA BHALLA A sharp rise in gender-based violence in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted an urgent need for more shelters to help victims and awareness campaigns, women's rights groups said on Friday. Cases of violence targeting women and girls - including rape, child marriage and murder - rose 36% in 2020 from a year earlier to just over 5,000, government data showed this week. The report released by Kenya's ministry of public service, youth and gender was based on the findings of an investigation ordered by President Uhuru Kenyatta last year into rising reports of violence due to…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Lessons from the past: protecting women and girls from violence during COVID-19

HUMAN RIGHTS

COVID-19 has impacted women and girls around the globe in adverse ways. However, little attention has been paid to women and girls in humanitarian settings, those whose safety has already been reduced due to conflict, natural disaster or displacement. For these women and girls, COVID-19 has made them particularly vulnerable to increases in gender-based violence. LINDSAY STARK, Associate Professor of Social Work and Public Health, Washington University in St Louis LUISSA VAHEDI, PhD candidate, Washington University in St Louis This is not the first time we have seen an infectious disease event lead to higher levels of gender-based violence. A…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Three Kenyan radio DJs’ sacked over patriarchy

NEWS

NITA BHALLA THE swift sacking of three Kenyan radio presenters who suggested women were to blame for gender-based violence should serve as a catalyst for change in the country's often sexist media, women's campaigners have said. The three disc jockeys at Homeboyz Radio were fired at the weekend following outrage over their comments about an ongoing court case in which a man is accused of pushing a woman from the 12th floor of a building after she refused his advances. Women's campaigners said misogynistic remarks remained commonplace in the Kenyan media, but they welcomed the decisive action taken, adding that…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Radio in Mali can empower women by remembering they are part of a social web

HUMAN RIGHTS

THE Malian politician, writer and women’s activist Aoua Kéita once argued that “The evolution of a country depends on the place that women occupy in the public space of that country.” Today, Malian women face multiple and intersecting barriers that prevent them from realising this vision. EMMA HEYWOOD, Lecturer and Researcher, University of Sheffield In a country with discriminatory laws, extensive polygamy and gender-based violence, and where husbands are often the sole decision-makers, Malian women live in an oppressive culture amid widespread poverty. To ease financial burdens, many Malian girls are forced to marry as children so their families can…