AFRIHEALTH OPTONET
ASSOCIATION Civil Society Organizations [CSOs] network and
think-tank on Health, Community and Development Systems Strengthening |
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EMAIL: afrihealthoptonet2@gmail.com Ph: +234 (0) 8034725905
Website: www.afrihealthcsos.org |
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Headquarters: Plot 520, FHA
Estate, Lugbe, Airport Rd; P.O. Box 8880, Wuse, Abuja, Nigeria |
Participants and ending gender-based violence (GBV) activists/champions/stakeholders from Bangladesh, Belgium , Burundi, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, South America, Sudan, Switzerland, Tunisia, Uganda, United Kingdom and Zimbabwe met on 14 January 2021 via zoom, in a symposium convened and organized by Afrihealth Optonet Association [CSOs Network] within the Gender-Based Violence symposium series of the ‘Civil Society for Elimination of Gender-Based Violence (CS4EGBV)’ Project; and for which more than five hundred (500) activists/enthusiasts from all over the world registered.
Afrihealth Optonet Association is a civil society network and think-tank of about 600 (Six Hundred) organizations across Africa, the Caribbean and global South for Systems Strengthening in Health; Energy, Climate Change and Environment; Nutrition and Food Security; and Gender, Good Governance, Democracy, Human Security, Rights and Dignity; Human Capital Development; promotion of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). AFRIHEALTH is committed to the propagation of ‘Health’ as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being through Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and health systems strengthening, especially in the areas of the SDGs, diseases prevention, provision of care and impact mitigations using partnerships, advocacy, research/evidence-generation, capacity development, outreaches, and monitoring and evaluation as strategies; focusing on rural and poor urban communities, vulnerable and disadvantaged populations; and exploring the interlinkages between Health, Energy and Environment, Nutrition and Food Security, and Gender, Good Governance, Democracy and Human Rights.
The symposium received an opening statement from Dr. Uzodinma Adirieje (Nigeria) - Chief Executive Officer, Afrihealth Optonet Association who served as the symposium moderator; listened to Professor Hayat Gomma (Egypt) - full Professor at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria who was the lead speaker; and received panel contributions from Ms Thina Maphosa (Zimbabwe) - Programmes Manager, YES Trust, Zimbabwe; Ms Sophie Shima (Belgium/Burundi) - Co-fondatrice & Directrice, Pont de la Solidarite’ asbi and Coordinator of Advocacy/Fundraising/Partnerships; Restore Dignity, Uganda; Alhaji Abdul Rashidi Imoro (Ghana) - Program Manager, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Right, Savana Signatures, Ghana; and Mr. Azubuike Michael Nwachukwu (Nigeria) - Founder, Grow Cassava, Palm Tree and Farm Produce for Cash (GCPPC), Nigeria.
The
participants acknowledged that:
1. Gender Based Violence is any harmful act that is
perpetrated against a person’s will because of the person’s gender, which includes physical,
sexual, mental harm through threats, actions, coercion and other deprivation of
freedom inflicted in public or private – the forms of which include child marriage, female genital mutilation/female genital cutting, honour
killings, human trafficking for sex or slavery, intimate partner violence,
physical punishment, and sexual, emotional or psychological violence, rape and
other types of exploitation;
2.
one in every three
women have experienced gender-based violence in their lifetime;
3. one in five women and girls under the age of
15 have suffered physical or sexual violence by spouse within the past 12
months according to data collected from 87 countries;
4. GBV/VAWG
is a persisting but unacceptable infringement on the human rights and dignity
of all its victims, and so deserve the attention, condemnation and resource-support
of the world’s leaders at all levels, especially since most victims are unable
to fight for themselves;
5. according
to the World
Health Organization (WHO), GBV has put an enormous burden on health care services
for women and has proved to be more costly, as the cases in sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs), physical injuries, miscarriages, severe
psychological conditions and even death, increase daily;
6. 30% of married/partnered women
have experienced Intimate Partner Violence;
7. 7% of women have experienced
non-partner sexual violence;
8. each
year, about 12
million girls are married before they are 18 years old; and
9.
that the COVID-19 pandemic
escalated GVB/VAWG to a level that about 31 million cases of GBV occurred during an average lockdown of 6 months
The
participants expressed concerns that:
1. lack of adequate systematic data collection and
analysis of gender-based and domestic violence continued in 2020 – the
year of COVID-19 pandemic, during which domestic and gender-based violence increased while avenues
for redress and services for victims shrunk;
2. Serious gaps continued in the several official responses to widespread domestic violence,
including lack of sufficient protection and recourse for survivors, skewed
laws on domestic
violence that do not provide comprehensive definition of domestic
violence, do not make inclusive provisions that also address
violence against men and boys, and fail to address several issues crucial to ensuring
effective protection for survivors;
3. some of the contributory factors
include patriarchal system in many societies which makes intimate partner violence
cases not to be reported nor their urgency seen and if reported,
families are made to favour out-of-court settlements that still left
victims not receiving fair hearing/justice while perpetrators are not punished
according to laws to serve as deterrent;
4. poor/inadequate
resourcing/funding of state/formal agencies/institution saddled with the
responsibility of bringing legal justice in cases of GBV, while resources are not usually unavailable to some organizations
and youth led initiatives to bring awareness on GBV issues; and
5. lack of economic empowerment of victims makes many GBV cases go unreported as victims often still have to rely on the perpetrators for basic needs from the perpetrator.
The
participants observed that:
1. Several advocates, politicians and experts
advocating for a robust domestic violence and gender-based
violence laws often reported threats against them and
their families, including by those claiming to promote “traditional” or “family”
values; but are not generally provided with personal
security by the state, thus making them very vulnerable to attacks;
2. Men and boys are critical change
agents in GBV prevention efforts and are needed to be involved in the fight of elimination
against Gender Based Violence.
3. It is
imperative to engage
youths together with other established leaders in the effort to end
GBV/VAWG, while economic
empowerment remains a very crucial and leading factor in the elimination of GBV/VAWG;
4. that culture, religion and legal limitations tend to make the
elimination of gender-based violence more resistant to be implemented in
certain environments;
5. most laws
on GBV/VAWG tend
to favor women and girls, thus preventing several men and boys from
reporting cases
of GBV/VAWG being perpetrated against them, thus suffering in silence;
6. there is
gross inadequacy of safe
houses for victims of GBV, social support from community and religious
entities for victims, affordable or free mental health programs and counseling
for victims, perpetrators or families; and dearth of
programmes/opportunities for disseminating GBV/VAWG information to several population
in different
languages, including braille and sign language; and
7. poor/inadequate
enforcement of existing laws and treaties against GBV in several countries.
The
participants therefore call on and recommend to the United Nations, all
countries, governments, diaspora communities, humanitarian organizations,
development partners, foundations, philanthropists, donors and endGBV/VAWG
stakeholders world over, to:
1. declare as
‘war crime’, any gender-based violence and violence against women and girls
orchestrated during wars and inter-communal conflicts, thus making it
punishable under current international laws on war crimes;
2. institute
free and compulsory health services for all victims of GBV/VAWG in all health
facilities, while using health insurance to pay for those who shall be treated
by private health facilities, especially for refugees, internally displaced
persons (IDPs), migrants, homeless people, persons with disability, older
persons and young people/adolescents;
3. increasingly
promote measures/initiatives to ensure the achievement of the Sustainable
Development Goal no. 5 (SDG5) – Achieve Gender Equality and
Empower Women and Girls, as being cross-cutting to all the other SDGs,
in all sectors, at all levels, for every society/community;
4. support
the involvement of men and boys as critical agents/champions for the
elimination of GBV/VAWG in their respective societies/environments and beyond;
5. support
the signing of the ‘Every Woman Treaty’ as a necessary ‘next step’ in ending
VAWG globally;
6. ensure
that in order to end
Gender Based Violence by 2030, there is need for ‘clean entertainment’ to
ensure that contents allowed in home
videos, cartoons,
music, films, games and so forth, do not depict promotion or
acceptance of GBV/VAWG for any reasons;
7. include
GBV/VAWG in school curricula at the early stages of children’s education in schools,
as part of the global efforts to promote and observe human rights and dignity
for all persons;
8. support
programmes/interventions for anger management, emotional intelligence sessions,
while the media and entertainment industry must create more contents that are both inspirational, promote
character
building and eschew GBV/VAWG;
9. support
and prevail on the courts to provide lie detector test machines to verify reported GBV/VAWG cases, so as to avoid punishing
an innocent person, letting perpetrators go free for “want of
proof or evidence” and always ensure that true justice based on truth is
dispensed to all with neither fear nor favour, affection nor ill-will;
10. promote increased access to
GBV/VAWG information by the youth, since ‘information/knowledge is power’ and informed young women and men are
bound to make better decisions that assist them to effectively engage in life
processes, escape GBV/VAWG and determine their destiny;
11. support continuous multi-sectorial approaches to
urgently stop the GBV/VAWG pandemic, including provision of safe spaces where victims can report abuses without alerting perpetrators in/among rural, remote, hard-to-reach, poor urban and
resource-constrained settings/populations across the whole world;
12. consider programme flexibility to
include GBV interventions with current funds and going forward, provide additional resources/funds to respond to the issues of GBV/VAWG
monster; and
13. commit to
building back better after the within and after the COVID-19 pandemic, which gender
dynamics cannot be overlooked, by providing, supporting and committing to
interventions that assist women to deal with the impacts of the pandemic, which
has already increased the burden of care and risk of GBV/VAWG for women, girls
and young people;
14. urgently
address issues of climate change and biodiversity challenges such as water and
energy shortages, long distances to water and fuel/energy sources, increased
burden of carrying water along long distances which also increases the risk and
vulnerability of women and girls to GBV, as well as takes away their productive
time and school as long hours are spent in ques or travelling to fetch water
and fuel/energy for family and commercial uses;
15. address
the provision of menstrual pads and other sanitary wear for women and girls as
a basic needs/necessity to be provided free at all time, as many women
especially in their youth/adolescence are compelled to sell their bodies, engage
into early sexual activities, remain in
abusive relationships, and or refuse to report these perpetrators of GBV/VAWG
in order to continue to receive moneys to provide these menstrual pads and
other sanitary wears; while countries and organizations are instituting programmes/frameworks
meant to offer free contraceptives to girls as young as 12 years who at the same
time cannot afford menstrual pads and other sanitary wear; and
16. support global networks and support groups for victims of GBV/VAWG through the mass media, enhanced communication and collaboration between all community sectors to end GBV/VAWG.
The
participants commit themselves and their organizations to:
1. strengthening local initiatives and structures (rather than creating parallel
initiatives) by creating genuine partnerships/collaborations that are transparent, engage more in capacity development and training to improve local competence and
skills in
leadership, advocacy, research, evidence generation,
outreaches, communication,
social mobilization, coordination, networking, awareness raising, implementation of
interventions, and
monitoring and evaluation of programs and initiatives in the fight against
elimination of GBV;
2. promoting
the works of the civil society to eliminate all
forms of gender-based violence in all countries and communities by the year
2030 through increase programmes/interventions to eliminate GBV/VAWG in/among
rural, remote, hard-to-reach, poor urban and resource-constrained
settings/populations across the whole world;
3. ending
the inglorious culture of silence around GBV/VAWG, especially on the victims;
and
4. fully support
and adopt the ‘Whole Hand Framework’ for the elimination of GBV/VAWG through Legal
Reform (minimum standards save lives), Training
and accountability for professionals (police, judges, medical), Services (shelters, medical
treatment, livelihoods support), Prevention
Education (males & females, adults, teens & children), and Money/Funding (10X increase to $1 per female
on earth, or 4 Billion per year).
In conclusion,
participants expressed their appreciation to Afrihealth Optonet Association
[CSOs Network]/’Civil Society for
Elimination of Gender-Based Violence (CS4EGBV)’ Project, for
organizing the symposium while expressing the need for the network to organize
several more of such events for various segments/actors in the endGBV/VAWG
efforts to be carried along. Participants were thankful to all the
speakers/panelists, to Ms Faith Mvududu (Zimbabwe) who was the
symposium’s lead rapporteur and Mr. Emmanuel Gaudu of African Security Investigation which was
the symposium’s lead media partner.
Dr. Uzodinma Adirieje.
Programmes Director/CEO,
CS4EGBV Project/Afrihealth
Optonet Association [CSOs Network]
Phone: +234 803 472 5905
Email: cs4egbv@gmail.com
Signed by the
following representatives:
Dr. Uzodinma
Adirieje. Civil Society for Elimination of Gender-Based Violence (CS4EGBV) Project/Afrihealth
Optonet Association [CSOs Network]; Nigeria
Ms Thina Maphosa. YES Trust;
Zimbabwe
Eunice Yinka Odedele. Gender
Equality and The Girl Child Development Foundation (GEGCDF), Ondo State,
Nigeria
Omobolanle Shakirat Ajijola.
Bina Al-Amal Foundation, Nigeria
Dr. Kabir Hamisu Kura. Community
Development Initiative (CDI), Nigeria
Martin Moyo, Eden
Centre, Zimbabwe
Zainab Umar. Health
Reform Foundation of Nigeria (HERFON), Kaduna, Nigeria
Alhaja Ogungbenro A.O. Airat
Ogungbenro Children Protection (ACP) Initiative, Ibadan, Nigeria
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