Though I only spent a few days in the Liberian capital of Monrovia this past summer, the narrative of a country racked by nearly two decades of civil war wove its way through almost every place I visited and in the stories of those I met along the way.
However, what continually stood out in each account we heard was not simply the brutality inflicted by dictator Charles Taylor and his legion of male warlords, but rather, the significant role that women played in putting an end to the era of conflict. And in fact, two Liberian women -– President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her compatriot, peace activist Leymah Gbowee -– were recently honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for their hand in helping to end the war and steer the country forward in the years following.
PBS will be exploring the power of Liberia’s women in tonight’s “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” as part of their five-part documentary series,“Women, War & Peace.” Tonight’s episode will recount the story of the Liberian women who took on Taylor and his regime amid an escalating conflict, and won seemingly unattainable peace for the country in 2003. Armed only with white T-shirts and iron clad courage, they were instrumental in putting an end to years of inconceivable violence and helped to put their country back on the slow road to recovery.
Watch the preview above to whet your appetite before tonight’s show. Put it on your calendar or set the DVR, because this is definitely a story you’ll want to hear.
Sinead Murray of the International Rescue Committee sheds light on a hidden side of the Horn of Africa crisis: gender-based violence.
Dadaab, Kenya — On the outskirts of Hagadera, a refugee camp near the town of Dadaab, Somali women and their families are gathered, desperately seeking assistance after fleeing a famine and the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa region in six decades.
Newly arriving refugees from Somalia are housed in the outskirts of Dadaab. Photo credit: Edward Macharia/ IRC.
I have been working with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) here for nearly a year. Looking around this arid, desolate corner of northwestern Kenya — barely 50 miles from the Somali border — it is hard to imagine that this is where more than 1,000 people a day come to look for help.
Famine has gripped headlines in recent weeks. Yet the story you might not have heard is what I consider the hidden side of this crisis –- violence against women and girls.
Two weeks ago, I sat in a thatch-roofed hut outside Hagadera speaking with a group of Somali women who had just crossed one of the most dangerous borders in the world. Their stories were alarming and disturbingly similar: Women and girls were taken from overcrowded vehicles, then robbed and raped by men with guns. Many were raped by multiple attackers, sometimes in front of their own families. Some “came to the camp naked,” one woman confided.
Each day, my IRC colleagues see a growing number of women and girls seeking help for the attacks they encountered on the road. But there are many more that don’t come forward, either out of shame and fear –- or simply because by the time they reach Dadaab, they are so exhausted and hungry that what happened to them along the way is one of many urgent concerns.
Sadly, Dadaab has not proven to be the safe haven that many women and girls had hoped for. The camps here are buckling under the pressure of a steadily increasing stream of refugees. New arrivals must wait on the outskirts, where aid agencies are trying to stretch their limited funding to meet the enormous needs all around. The result is that Dadaab simply isn’t safe for women and girls. They must walk far to get firewood and water, risking attack just to cook food for their families.
While the famine has been portrayed as a natural disaster, this crisis is not so simple. There is a complex web of conflict and insecurity in the region that has not only subjected millions of people to hunger and disease, but also to violence. And women and girls are facing the biggest risks.
This crisis couldn’t have hit at a worse time. As Congress spent the summer trying to make deeper cuts in spending, there is little funding available to go to an emergency like this. This is unfortunate because we know that with the right attention and resources, easy solutions can be put in place. Aid groups like the IRC can scale up services that help survivors recover and heal. We can construct more water points and latrines so that women and girls don’t need to risk attack in the forest. We can create safe spaces so that women and girls have a place to go for assistance and support.
The United States has been a leader in investing in women and girls, stating loudly and clearly that their needs are of primary importance to our country’s development and security goals. If there is one place where such leadership is needed today, it is in the Horn of Africa. Somali women and girls are counting on it.
Last week I blogged about a big announcement from the State Department outlining a new $30 million commitment to combating gender-based violence through PEPFAR. Over at State’s DipNote blog, US Global AIDS Ambassador Eric Goosby has a bit more background on the need to address gender-based violence and how this funding will do that.
He explains:
As a key component of President Obama’s Global Health Initiative (GHI), which explicitly embraces a woman- and girl-centered approach to health issues, PEPFAR is working to reaffirm and expand its focus on women and girls in the context of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. This $30 million initiative is one way that we are doing so.
PEPFAR’s increased GBV response will build upon the existing PEPFAR platforms in these three countries, working to increase the reach, coordination, and efficacy of GBV programs. Our hope is that this initiative will move us closer to our goal of sustainable GBV responses by moving small, pilot projects to tailored, coordinated and integrated national responses.
To ensure this, we will strengthen our current partnerships with governments, non-governmental organizations and civil society in Mozambique, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as other countries in which we work. We will also support comprehensive GBV response packages for victims of violence at health facilities, increase GBV prevention programs to address the underlying causes of violence, and improve linkages with other sectors and addressing policy and address structural barriers. PEPFAR will partner with countries and build synergies both across U.S. Government agencies and other partners that focus on GBV-related development issues, such as education, reproductive health, democracy and governance, and economic growth. As we move to expand the reach of programs to fight gender-based violence, we will strengthen our monitoring and evaluation efforts to ensure that interventions implemented are effective and contribute to the broader global effort.
I just got this press release in my inbox that I thought readers might be interested in. According to the State Department, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has committed an additional $30 million to support three partner countries– Tanzania, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of Congo– in their efforts to scale up gender-based violence prevention and response efforts.
From the official statement:
Gender-based violence is a world-wide pandemic that poses significant health and human rights concerns to vulnerable populations. GBV directly fosters the spread of HIV/AIDS, and limits women and girls’ ability to negotiate sexual practices, to disclose HIV status, and to access services due to fear of GBV. PEPFAR’s increased GBV response will build upon the existing platforms in these three countries and their experience with GBV and HIV activities to increase the reach, coordination, and efficacy of GBV programs in these nations.
To pursue this intensified approach, PEPFAR will strengthen its current partnerships with governments, non-governmental organizations and civil society to scale up GBV work in the three countries. PEPFAR will support comprehensive GBV response packages for victims of violence at select health facilities, increase GBV prevention programs to address the underlying causes of violence, and improve linkages with other sectors and addressing policy and structural barriers. PEPFAR will also look for synergies with U.S. Government agencies and other partners that already focus on GBV-related development issues, such as education, reproductive health, democracy and governance, and economic growth.
Along with increased GBV interventions, this initiative will support countries to enhance monitoring and evaluation of GBV programs in order to help assess progress toward program goals and improve the effectiveness of GBV responses.
One subject that doesn’t get a ton of press in the coverage of the Haiti earthquake’s aftermath, are the women and young girls who have been left increasingly vulnerable and susceptible to exploitation and violence. So it was heartening to see UNICEF’s piece about some of the gender-based violence taking place and what’s being done to prevent it, and offer resources to the victims.
UNICEF outlines what they’ve been doing on this front, and provides some background in the full piece:
In the aftermath of earthquake, UNICEF staff members have met with nearly a dozen groups in south–eastern Haiti, working to create an effective referral system for survivors of violence. Small plastic–coated referral cards, printed in Haitian Creole, instruct victims on where to go for medical care and support. The cards were developed by UNICEF, in collaboration with the Haitian Government, the International Rescue Committee, and UNFPA.
A girl braids a woman’s hair outside rows of makeshift shelters for Haitians displaced by the earthquake. Overcrowded conditions in homes and camps are increasing the danger of gender-based violence.
“Information is key,” says Ms. Maternowska, “and placing that information in the hands of a survivor can save her life. The referral cards we’ve developed provide information on how and where to access essential medications to prevent pregnancy and HIV. And of course, the provision of timely information gives survivors access to full medical treatment, psycho-social support and justice.”
In partnership with NGOs and other UN agencies, UNICEF supports the Haitian Government’s push to include gender-based violence services as part of a comprehensive approach to women’s and girls’ health. Plans to develop dedicated health centers for women and girls are currently in the works in the areas hardest-hit by the earthquake—including Port–au–Prince, Leogane and Jacmel.
The partners’ goal is to expand these services to even the most remote corners of Haiti, including Anse–a–Pitre.
Women Thrive Worldwide picked up a great op-ed from Senator Ben Cardin (MD) discuss his support of the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA). Below is an excerpt– you can get more background on the IVAWA here.
Violence against women ranges from gang rape to domestic violence and from acid burnings to so-called honor killings. It also includes sexual violence as a tool of war, such as what is now occurring on a vast scale in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has become a serious public health epidemic and a barrier to solving global problems such as poverty and HIV/AIDS. It devastates the lives of millions of women and girls, and it knows no national or cultural barriers.
Women who are abused frequently die or face serious injury and are at much greater risk of dying in pregnancy, having children who die in childhood, and of contracting HIV/AIDS.
What most people don’t realize is that violence against women is also a major cause of poverty. Typically, women are much more likely to be among the world’s poorest, living on a dollar a day or less. Violence reduces their standard of living by preventing them from accessing education or earning the income they need to lift their families out of poverty. In turn, poverty often prevents them from fleeing, perpetuating a vicious cycle that keeps millions of women from making better lives for themselves and their families.
In Nicaragua, for example, a study found that children of female victims of violence left school an average of four years earlier than other children. In India, it has been found that women who experienced even a single incident of violence lost an average of seven working days.
Melanne Verveer, who serves as the director of the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, has a great post at State’s DipNote blog. In it, she touts the International Violence Against Women Act, which was recently introduced in the House and Senate.
Key line: “Our response to violence against women must include men and women working together to elevate the problem beyond “a domestic matter,” and beyond a “women’s issue.” Ending violence against women around the world is a human rights issue…” (Emphasis mine).
You can read her full post here. Some background on the IVAWA here.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
