Human Rights for Women in Liberia (and West Africa): Integrating Formal and Informal Rule of Law Reforms through the Carter Center’s Community Justice Advisor Project

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Zwier
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Justice ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Resolution Processes

AbstractThis article will first describe the problem of Sexual and Gender-based Violence (SGBV) in Liberia, its history to views of its current status, and the debate about its cause. It will discuss the problems that result through trying to address the problem of SGBV through both formal and informal rule of law development strategies, including both traditional and customary dispute resolution processes within the Liberian setting. It will also describe the reasoning behind The Carter Center (TCC’s) support of traditional and community-based projects, including its use of NGO social science research in helping it monitor the progress being made in fighting SGBV. It will be a tale of discouragement as assessment showed the continuing prevalence of SGBV. Next the paper will discuss what led TCC to develop its Community Justice Advisor (CJA) Project. It will describe the project and its implementation. Finally it will look at the research attempts to measure CJA’s success and predict whether funding of additional CJAs will likely be effective in combating SGBV. It will conclude by making some modest observations about whether CJAs might work elsewhere in Africa, or in the developing world, and the promise and dangers of using individual paralegals as a major tool in combating SGBV.

Male and Female Perceptions and Experiences of Sexual and Gender-based Violence in South Kivu, Eastern DRC

2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052098330
Author(s):  
Elyse J. Thulin ◽  
Andrew Lustig ◽  
Violette Perrotte ◽  
Marx Lwabanya ◽  
Tyler Evans
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Community Based ◽  
South Kivu ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Impact

Conflict settings are often the context of some of the highest rates of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). Although women are disproportionately the victims of SGBV, they are not the only victims. Indirect impacts of SGBV also impact men, families, and communities. Examining SGBV as only a woman’s concern reinforces the hegemonic gender-binary view that SGBV somehow does not include men, who can be direct victims of SGBV, family members of female victims of SGBV, and/or perpetrators of SGBV. This qualitative study seeks to fill a gap by exploring the impact of SGBV on individuals, families, and communities, and potential options to ameliorate those issues. Data were collected in 2019 from community-based discussions in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. Women described being direct victims of SGBV, as well as the burden of being at constant alert to the possible threat of violence. Men talked more about SGBV being perpetrated against women, and the indirect effect on men’s perception of their social husband and/or father role to protect and provide for their family. Taken together, women and men describe three types of violence: sexual violence by an unknown assailant who is often associated the rebel groups or the military; sexual violence from a known assailant within one’s community; and sexual or physical violence within intimate partnerships (i.e., intimate partner violence). Women focused more on community-based solutions to reduce their exposure to violence, while men discussed the government’s responsibility to end the long-standing conflict that has severely disrupted lives. Practically, these findings support the need to specify different types of SGBV, and the opportunity to tailor interventions by type.

Feminist Activism and YPAR: Privileged Girls Interrupt Rape Culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122097881
Author(s):  
Amira Proweller ◽  
Beth S. Catlett ◽  
Sonya Crabtree-Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Rape Culture ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Resistance Strategies ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

This research focuses on a community-based project that foregrounds youth-led participatory action research with privileged youth. The youth’s work involved interrogation of, and resistance strategies for, rape culture. Research findings demonstrate that youth came to see that rape culture has deep roots and disrupting it depends on naming its reality within their lives and its systemic foundations. Building on these emergent understandings, the youth took steps to educate their community about rape culture and gender-based violence, and the consequences of leaving it unexamined. They also created strategies to transform rape culture and facilitate social change within their own community.

scholarly journals Resilience in a Kenyan informal settlement during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-142
Author(s):  
Stephen Vertigans ◽  
◽  
Natascha Mueller-Hirth ◽  
Fredrick Okinda
Keyword(s):  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Global North ◽  
Financial Safety Nets ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Controlling Measures ◽  
The Impact

Informal settlements have been identified as locations both where the spread of COVID-19 has generally been slower than within the Global North and measures to restrain the pandemic have further intensified local peoples’ marginality as income decreases without welfare or financial safety nets. In this paper, qualitative fieldwork is detailed which commenced in Korogocho, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, immediately prior to national COVID-19 restrictions. This March 2020, pre-COVID phase of the fieldwork focused on a community-based project and the basis for resilience in transforming local lives. During the next 12 months of the pandemic fieldwork continued, exploring experiences and reactions to restraining policies. These findings reinforce concerns about the impact of COVID-19 related restrictions on marginalised peoples’ income, food security, health, safety and gender-based violence. How the local people reacted to these effects highlights their creative resilience and adaptability. The paper concludes by examining the impact of, and responses to, the controlling measures on the social relationships and cohesion that underpins the community resilience.

Photos from the Quarter

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-112
Keyword(s):  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Israeli Occupation

This sample of photos from 16 August–15 November 2019 aims to convey a sense of Palestinian life during this quarter. The images capture Palestinians across the diaspora as they fight to exercise their rights: to run for office, to vote, and to protest both Israeli occupation and gender-based violence.

THE SINS OF THE FATHER: GENDER- BASED VIOLENCE IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyn Snodgrass
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Black Women ◽  
South African ◽  
African Women ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
South African Women

This article explores the complexities of gender-based violence in post-apartheid South Africa and interrogates the socio-political issues at the intersection of class, ‘race’ and gender, which impact South African women. Gender equality is up against a powerful enemy in societies with strong patriarchal traditions such as South Africa, where women of all ‘races’ and cultures have been oppressed, exploited and kept in positions of subservience for generations. In South Africa, where sexism and racism intersect, black women as a group have suffered the major brunt of this discrimination and are at the receiving end of extreme violence. South Africa’s gender-based violence is fuelled historically by the ideologies of apartheid (racism) and patriarchy (sexism), which are symbiotically premised on systemic humiliation that devalues and debases whole groups of people and renders them inferior. It is further argued that the current neo-patriarchal backlash in South Africa foments and sustains the subjugation of women and casts them as both victims and perpetuators of pervasive patriarchal values.

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