Participatory approach essential to reducing gender-based violence
One of the most prevalent gender-based violence in the world is domestic violence. It is defined as abuse by one person against another in an intimate relationship, including marriage, cohabitation, dating, or relations within the family (Abramsky et al., 2011; Ellsberg et al., 2008; Garcia-Moreno et al., 2006, 2013; USAID, 2006).
According to Garca Moreno et al., 2005, 2013; Moosa, 2012, the outcomes of gender-based violence is not pleasant as it presents physical, mental health and economic challenges for victims.
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This translates into poor livelihood, lower human capital, and lower productivity.
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) against women and young girls has reached epidemic levels. Statistics put it that one in three women encounters gender-based violence today, with victims dealing with the stigma.
Gender-based violence
In Ghana, between the ages of one and 14 years, 94 per cent of these children are estimated to have suffered as a result of gender-based violence at their homes. (MoGCSP, 2018).
The same source also has it that not less than 48 per cent of Ghanaian girls and women have experienced sexual abuse because of the SGBV. The situation is equally bad on the global scale.
According to a 2018 statistic, 650 million women and girls worldwide get married before the age of 18, while in West and Central Africa, child marriage is still pervasive, as four out of 10 young women are married out before they turn 18 years.
This scenario limits the potential of victims resulting in other related socio- economic problems including early pregnancies and school dropouts.
The likelihood of women and girls prone to experience domestic abuse is increased by all these factors.
Many institutions, including NGOs, donor projects and programmes, and civil society organisations have all played various roles in combating gender-based violence.
The agriculture sector investment programme, a government of Ghana project funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and supervised by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, has also implemented interventions that contribute to addressing inequalities within the households and communities.
Gender action
It also focuses on promoting the inclusion of all forms of vulnerable groups in its programmes. Gender transformation has been a key part of the programme, and to achieve this the programme adopted and implemented the Gender Action Learning System (GALS), which is one of the household methodologies promoted by IFAD for its supported programmes.
The GALs were piloted in two programme beneficiary districts namely: Gomoa East District in the Central Region and Kasena Nankana Municipality in the Upper East Region of Ghana.
During the piloting of the GALS, different tools were adapted to facilitate transformation in different life and livelihood focus.
One of the tools, which were applied to address gender-based issues within families and communities was the Gender Justice diamond.
Both genders were given the chance to state their social expectations of each other in the community. For instance, girls and women are frequently expected to behave politely, be accommodating, and be nurturing.
Men are typically supposed to be powerful, combative and brave. Gender role expectations exist in every country, ethnic group and culture, but they can vary greatly among them.
There was also discussion on measures to address gender-based issues and make a commitment to deal with them.
Approach
The approach to addressing gender-based violence with the GASIP project is to adopt and implement Household methodologies or systems that would promote gender and livelihood justice through gender transformation.
The Household methodology applied here was the GALS being promoted by IFAD in its projects. The GALS involves the application of diagram tools and processes in a participatory manner among communities, households and individuals to build the capacity of men and women to be able to take more control over their lives.
It is a community-led empowerment methodology that gives community members at the household and groups and community level the opportunity to assess their situations and plans to break the barriers to development.
The tools that were applied in empowering these communities to address gender-based violence within their homes and personal lives in the GASIP project communities are the gender justice diamond, the gender challenge action tree and the multilane vision journey.
The method used was community meetings and focused group discussions (FGD) involving men and women in separate groups.
The number of participants for each group; that is for men and women, was 25 each from the community of Potsin in the Gomoa East District in the Central Region. Each of the discussion sessions took one hour and it was done for two days.
Issues identified
Here, the focus is on one such process of applying the gender justice diamond in a community called Potsin in the Gomoa East District in the Central Region.
This will be a case study among other communities that had this process applied. The process aims to facilitate the identification of concrete indicators about gender which can be used for monitoring and evaluation and identify what the progress has been and refinement of indicators for future monitoring concerning ongoing project interventions.
In the Potsin community was the group was asked to represent two things each in a drawing that make them proud or the positive side of being a woman or man (male or female) and also two things that makes them feel sad or bad that is the negative side of being a woman or man (male or female).
The presentation from these community participants was revealing. They were then asked to put weight or vote on each issue to prioritise them according to the weight or votes to reveal the seriousness of such issues.
Each participant in both groups male and female had 5 scores or votes and they were asked to vote on the issues and decide how much vote or weight they decide to put on each issue.
Finding solutions
In the end, the results were that all the issues with high votes on both sides agreed to be put on a mother diamond and from there gender challenge action tree was used to analyse the root cause of each of the issues and how they were linked and then identify and decide on solutions to resolve them.
During the discussions, it was discovered that domestic violence has negative effects on people's daily lives in terms of their capacity to work, attend school, or do household duties, as well as their levels of confidence and sentiments of living in fear.
In addition, the impacts of physical violence were more severe than those of other forms of violence for both women and men.
Domestic abuse, along with other forms of gender-based violence, is today recognised as a violation of fundamental human rights and a worldwide issue by civil society and governments all over the world.
Therefore, to achieve gender equality and empower everyone, all hands must be on deck to safeguard the gains made in the prevention of gender-based violence.
The writer is the Value Chain and Gender Officer of GASIP.
