TRACKING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS (VAWG)
Gender and social inclusion are strategic pillars upon which REINVENT defines change and impact. VAWG manifests differently in each region. Recognizing this, REINVENT supports justice interventions, structured dialogues and advocacy solutions that tackle root causes of VAWG as well as VAWG prevalence and manifestation in the target counties.
Through these interventions, we envision improved management of VAWG, as evidenced by increased reporting of incidents, better-coordinated response mechanisms, due to better multi-agency coordination, gender-sensitive policing practices, more effective referral chains, and better prospects for victims and survivors to access to justice.
REINVENT PROGRAMME APPROACH
1
Builds trust and accountability between the security services, referral agencies and the community to increase reporting of VAWG.
2
Integrates issues of VAWG into legislation and frameworks across GoK.
3
Localizes national legislation and scale-up capacity building for stakeholders including county-based gender technical working groups.
4
Strengthens referral-chains and advocacy for greater access to justice for survivors.
5
Works with the peacebuilding and election security workstreams to enhance participation of women in peace and security sector decision making and minimize the impact of election violence on women and girls
Case Study
Shaping Collective Approaches To Tackle Normalisation of Gbv Sustaining Norms
The Africa Women and Child Feature Services (AWCFS) pilot intervention in Samburu County sought to understand how socio-cultural norms and harmful practices, unequal power relations, and patriarchy make women and girls vulnerable to various forms of violence such as child marriage, FGM, Girl-Beading, and battering, and how these, affect their empowerment and enjoyment of individual human rights.
The pilot involved organizing community focus group discussions to establish the influence of gender norms on cattle rustling, a harmful cultural practice and a major source of conflict and insecurity in Samburu, Laikipia and Baringo counties; and secondly how patriarchy normalizes and enhances this form of violence.
Two lessons emerged from this pilot intervention. First, women’s collective action is an important currency in conflict management and can determine how formal and informal structures, channels, movements, and actions engage to either sustain conflict or achieve peace. Second, the design of gender mainstreaming and VAWG programmatic interventions in these settings needs to take into consideration silence and concealment as social norms which come as out as unspoken/covenants to be preserved by a community. Read more about this pilot project