International charity OXFAM says government and other stakeholders in the campaign for women’s rights should look towards informal and community-based approaches to address the problem of gender-based violence.
Helen Akinyemi, the Programme Manager for Gender Justice at Oxfam in Nigeria, said gender transformative action was critical in breaking the culture of silence as it provides a platform for women in rural areas to share their experiences and discuss new ways to address them.
“This is targeted at women at the rural level, and it’s a kind of informal gathering, so we sit together,” Akinyemi said in Abuja on Saturday at the lunch of the “Enough! together we can end violence against women and girls” campaign to end the 2022 16 days of activism.
“We share life experiences, then we analyse it with a feminist lens, and then we also try to see how we address it by localising the approach,” she added.
On his part, Lugard Okonobo, the team lead for the Nigerian Women Economic Development Project, stressed the need to focus on the economic violence against women and girls to address other forms of gender-based violence fundamentally.
“We have seen instances where men feel that because the woman is doing well, she should take responsibility for the home; these are economic violence,” Okonobo said.
“For these 16 days, we focus on the orange flesh sweet potatoes, and we decided to use that to economically empower women and girls who are victims of violence.”
Jane Uzenwa, a gender development specialist with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), revealed that cases of “Money Wife” and “Brest Ironing” were grossly underreported and needed to be brought to the fore to address the different forms of gender-based violence holistically.
The UNITE to End Violence against Women initiative is a multiyear effort to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls worldwide.
The initiative, launched in 2008 under the leadership of the UN Secretary-General, was created to support the civil society led 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence campaign around the world.
Managed by UN Women, UNITE calls on governments, civil society, women’s organizations, young people, the private sector, media, and the UN system to join forces to address the global pandemic of violence against women and girls.
The global theme of this year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, which runs from 25 November to 10 December 2022, is “UNITE! Activism to end violence against women and girls”.
