Wednesday, May 14, 2008 Oledan: Opportunities By Radzini Oledan Slice of Life
VIOLENCE against women is a human rights issue.
In its 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the UN defined VAW as 'any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm done towards women.
Violence includes threats, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life'.
But even when there is a commitment to reduce VAW through programs and advocacy activities, development practitioners are sometimes unsure where this fits into the poverty reduction agenda.
Violence Against Women is any situation where violence is use to constrain women from realizing their economic, social, cultural and political rights.
VAW is not a marginal or trivial issue in relation to development.
Whether it takes the form of an act, or an explicit or implicit threat, VAW both arises from and underpins power imbalances.
The UN Declaration was an important milestone.
It was followed by the Beijing Platform for Action (UN 1995), which declared that 'governments are now obligated to respond to women's demands to be free from violence, to take steps to prevent violence, and to adopt measures to punish perpetrators when women's human rights are violated'.
The experience of abuse, especially where it is repeated over many years, erodes women's self-esteem and puts them at greater risk of health problems.
In many cases, the negative health outcomes of VAW subsequently lead to negative economic outcomes for women and children, as women's productivity and earnings are lowered.
There is considerable research evidence suggesting that, for boys, experiencing or witnessing chronic violence against their mothers can be the start of a long-term pattern of using violence to exert social control over others, both inside and outside the home.
In other words, domestic violence tends to be self-perpetuating, and is also linked to social violence.
For girls, witnessing and experiencing repeated domestic violence as children may mean that they are more likely to accept violence from their partners in adult life (UNICEF 2000). In both ways, the cycle is continued.
There are challenges.
Women may be reluctant to discuss VAW because of the possibility of violent reprisals by the perpetrators: feelings of embarrassment, shame, and fear of stigmatization may also present barriers.
In some cases, women's routine experience of violence affects their subjective perceptions of what constitutes violence, which makes it difficult to uncover the true picture.
There is no other way for development practitioners but to be mindful that there are various opportunities to link any program implementation vis-à-vis its potential to reduce VAW cases.
In the words of Amartya Sen, 'there is nothing more important in the political economy of development than the adequate recognition of women's participation and political, economic and social leadership.'
Women are agents of change, promoting social transformations that can alter everyone's lives, not only their own.
