Combating sexual, gender violence through community mobilisation By Ephraim Kasozi

 

For two decades, Uganda experienced armed conflict in the northern and eastern regions which resulted in diverse effects on the community like mass displacement and the destruction of families, livelihoods, infrastructure and the environment.
The conditions led to cultural fragmentation, abject poverty and vulnerability to preventable diseases, sexual abuse, mutilation and death. The prevalence of Sexual and Gender-based Violence (SGBV) is among the most severe costs and consequences of conflict.

Although peace has since been reinstated, it does not mean only absence of war since the end of war rarely brings peace and it can in fact bring new levels of violence into their lives.
Lilly Omara grew up in a polygamous family where her father had two wives and she was denied a chance to go to school but instead when she was clocking maturity age, Omara was used as a source of dowry for her brother.

“I was taken to stay with my step mother because she was barren. I always wanted to go to school but I was denied. As time passed, my brother wanted to marry but there was no dowry, so I decided to get married so that he (brother) can also marry,” recalls Omara, a resident of Ogot village, Aromo Sub-county in Lira District.
But Omara laments that when she got married, her husband turned violent and yet she could not go back to her parents.

“…That was the time of insurgency and we were forced to go to Internally Displaced Persons camps. While in the camp, the violence continued and my husband abandoned me to go with other women,” says Omara who also lost property when the camp got burnt.

Omara recalls that she continued to suffer from the violence even after 2011 when they left the camp.
“My husband abandoned me again and left me with a pregnancy,” says Omara who sustained scars as a result of the beatings by her husband.
Having persisted in the marriage, today Omara is a happy woman after undergoing training through the community mobilisation approach that targets community resource persons as champions of a violent free community.

Omara and her husband, an LCI leader, are part of hundreds of beneficiaries of the SASA project that is being implemented by Isis-Women’s International Cross Cultural Exchange (Isis-WICCE), Women’s Peace Initiative and Lira District Local Government in Ogot WOPI-U.
The SASA model of combating SGBV seeks to mobilise communities to change the power imbalances between women and men as it relates to violence against women.
SASA, a Swahili word means ‘NOW’ and is used to practically challenge the unequal power between women and men which often results in violence against women “the ultimate goal is seeing happy, safe and healthy families. It seeks to understand; what is power? Who has power? How is power abused.”

Omara and her husband were recruited among volunteer community activists since then their family relations have changed and currently they support each other in their home.
“My husband has since come back home, we pay school fees for our children and we are living a happy marriage,” Omara narrates.
Lira District is part of the northern districts formerly affected by the armed conflict between the government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Isis – WICCE Interim Executive director Helen Kezie Nwoha describes the strategy as a powerful tool to mobilize communities to change the power imbalances between women and men as it relates to violence against women.

“Since the beginning of the project, communities have accepted that they have been violent and that violence is wrong and unacceptable. There have been changes at personal level in attitude and behaviors. Male community activists are model men. There has been community led campaigns to combat SGBV thus promoting ownership, community learning and sustainability,” says Nwoha.

According to Nwoha, the intervention that stems from international exposition that was held in Lira town in 2012 where SGBV was cited as a major problem hindering development in the district and highest incidences were reported in Aromo Sub County especially in Akaidebe and Ogot villages.

“…through use of the SASA methodology, volunteer Community Activists have engaged communities to ensure harmonious relations, respond to sparks of conflict and violence, and conscientise communities on dangers of SGBV using community engagement tools,” says Nwoha.
She says that the initiative seeks to empower community members to have the skills to reach out and support women affected by violence to challenge existing norms that perpetrate violence as well as increase evidence on the extent of government’s response to the vice.

“As a citizen-led initiative, Volunteer Community Activists have engaged communities to ensure harmonious relations, respond to sparks of conflict and violence, and conscientise communities on dangers of SGBV using SASA community engagement tool,” Nwoha says.

fact sheet

Forms of SGBV

SGBV comprises domestic violence, systematic rape, sexual and psychological forms of abuse as well as harmful practices, such as genital mutilation/cutting etc. The consequences of sexual and gender based violence are devastating, and survivors often experience life-long emotional distress, mental health problems, poor reproductive health, and also at high risk of acquiring HIV.

Study

In a study undertaken by Center for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP)- (2011) the economic cost of SGBV is Shs55 billion per year for the referral system, health, law enforcement & judicial responses, of which Shs12 billion is attributed to individual medical costs as a result of domestic violence.

Causes:

Gender inequalities and changing power dimensions, debilitating consequences of violence, such as poverty, lack of harmony in relationships, alcoholism, lack of family cohesion, early/child marriages and cross generational sex which increased vulnerability to HIV; as well as lack of trust and poor communication among marrieds.

Impact of SGBV on women

Sexual and Gender-based Violence (SGBV) seriously affects all aspects of women’s health- physical, sexual and reproductive, mental and behavioural health. Health consequences of GBV can be both, immediate and acute as well as long lasting and chronic; indeed, negative health consequences may persist long after the violence has stopped. The more severe the level of violence, the greater the impact will be on women’s health. Furthermore, exposure to more than one type of violence (e.g. physical and sexual) and/or multiple incidents of violence over time tends to lead to more severe health consequences.

GBV can result in women’s deaths. Fatal outcomes may be the immediate result of a woman being killed by the perpetrator, or in the long-term, as a consequence of other adverse health outcomes. For example, mental health problems resulting from trauma can lead to suicidality, or to conditions such as alcohol abuse or cardiovascular diseases that can in turn result in death. HIV infection as a result of sexualviolence can cause AIDS and ultimately lead to death.