* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Among those we help each year are some of the most vulnerable; the most desperate and the most despairing – the people for whom life has become a hideous struggle for survival where each decision presents appalling choice after appalling choice.
This group includes those women who face violence because of their gender – women who face beatings, rapes, coercion into sex or other related abuses that leave stunning emotional and physical scars, destroy communities and shatter families.
What is most upsetting is how prevalent these incidents are.
According to the United Nations, one in three women around the world have faced some form of gender-based violence over their lifetime.
The organisation I work for, the International Medical Corps, is a leading actor in efforts to help address GBV in countries across the world – for example helping Syrian refugees in Turkey, supporting women forced into sex work across parts of the Middle East and those living in fear of their partners in parts of Africa. But the thing that has struck me during my time with the organisation is that it is preconceptions that need to be tackled too – not just the violence in its root form.
Take for example our work in six refugee camps in the Gambella region of Ethiopia – sites where nearly a quarter of a million people from South Sudan have sought sanctuary from the ongoing conflict that continues to take lives in their own country. Through financial support from the European Union, our teams are providing case management, counselling, psychosocial support and advocacy services to survivors of GBV from the refugee population in the Jewi and Pugnido 2 camps – and leading awareness raising activities and outreach activities to disseminate information about available services in the Pagak reception centre as well.
This work is very rewarding both for our staff who take part and for the thousands of people they have helped since it began in 2014, but has to be conducted with the upmost sensitivity towards the culture and attitudes of communities the programmes are based in. Spaces where our trained teams can work with vulnerable women are few and far between – often very rigidly defined hierarchies prevent younger girls from talking in front of adults, with South Sudanese culture enforcing the idea that senior women and mothers should be respected by the younger generations.
It is not just this idea of matriarchal status which our GBV teams need to consider - pre-existing perceptions of gender inequality has led to deep-rooted patterns of physical abuse among some families in which a lack of respect from many men to their women-folk is often hugely prevalent too.
These are serious barriers to tackling the issue.
Around ninety percent of our six thousand or so staff across the world comes from the countries and communities in which we work – so we have an expertise in our ranks to address these issues, but even then in discussion groups, training sessions and other opportunities it takes great time and effort to encourage a reconsideration of existing misperceptions.
Progression is happening: in the camps we are working in in Gambella, reports of GBV used to be rare – not a positive sign, rather one of women and girls living in fear of talking about such cases – or a reluctance to move past more traditional attitudes toward such abuse. Now refugees are coming forward to seek support on a far more regular basis – of course not a good thing, but a demonstration that psychosocial and protection help is being sought and that more lives are being changed for the better every day.
All the while, our teams are working to encourage these people to consider relationships and the way the vulnerable are treated. This may even lead to a decrease in cases once again – but a decrease for the right reasons.
