‘Justice system must protect women, girls from violence’

Governments have been urged to make the institutions mandated to protect women and girls against gender-based violence functional.

Panellists of a discussion on ‘Accelerating Action to End Violence Against Women and Girls’ were of the consensus that institutions such as the police and the justice system which have to protect women and girls have failed them.

As such, they said, women and girls continue to live in fear of violence due to societal norms.

The panellists were speaking at the Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 convened by the Kenyan and Danish governments and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

Economic security

In her submission, the Executive Director of UN Women Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka pointed out that women want income security and as such denial of economic services tie up women and girls to situations where violence is normalised.

“They expect violence as part of life. They become immune to injustice.

“Men become the offenders and repeat perpetrators, and they do it because there are not enough interventions to stop them.

Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka reiterated that when women and girls are economically dependent they ward off gender-based violence with impunity.

Inter-partner violence

A lead Economist of the World Bank, Dr Quenton Wodon stressed the need for interventions to tackle the problem in inter- partner violence.

He noted that even though some efforts started during the 1980s in this direction, progress has not been enough to end violence against women.

Dr Wodon called for systematic and coordinated efforts to get the institutions under the control of governments, such as the police and the justice system to perform their role of protecting women and girls against violence.

Ho observed that child marriage is a violation and a form of gender violence and called for sustained advocacy to change stereotypes and norms that promote violence against women and girls.

Policy

The Minister of International Development Cooperation, Denmark, Mr Rasmus Prehn stressed that governments must put in place practicable policies to end gender-based violence.

According to him, lessons from Denmark has shown that economic independence and high levels of educative do not automatically protect women and girls from violence.

“We need to look at other tools, such as dialogue, psychology, changing norms and introducing ways to deal with conflict without violence,” Mr Prehn said.

Counselling aggressive and violent partners also help them to deal with their issues without violence, adding, “we need to do more than working to reduce women’s poverty and provide them education and health services to tackle poverty.”