Millennium Child Support Group

ENDING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS

ENDING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS

What’s the Issue?

Violence against women and girls is a grave violation of human rights. Violence happens in public and private places. It has many forms which range from domestic or intimate partner violence to sexual harassment and assault, female genital mutilation, trafficking, sexual violence in conflict and gender-related killing.
The impact of violence ranges from immediate to long term physical, sexual and mental health consequences for women and girls, including death. It negatively affects women’s general well-being and prevents women from fully participating in society. Violence not only has long lasting consequences for women but also their families, the community and the country at large. It also has tremendous costs, from greater health care and legal expenses to productivity losses, impacting national budgets and overall development.

An unprecedented number of countries have laws and policies against various forms of violence. Challenges remain however in implementing these measures. Many women still lack access to free or affordable essential services in sectors such as health, police, justice and social support to ensure their safety, protection and recovery. Not enough is done to prevent violence, which is the most challenging but also effective way to eliminate violence in a sustainable way

Violence against women and girls is a global pandemic and the most pervasive and widespread human rights violation. More than 1 in 3 women (36.6%) in Africa report having experienced physical, and/or sexual partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner1. Across Africa, 125 million girls and women alive today were married before their 18th birthday.

One in three women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner. Violence against women and girls is a human rights violation, and the immediate and long-term physical, sexual, and mental consequences for women and girls can be devastating, including death. Violence negatively affects women’s general well-being and prevents women from fully participating in society. It impacts their families, their community, and the country at large. It has tremendous costs, from greater strains on health care to legal expenses and losses in productivity

Overall, over one in three young women in Africa were married at childhood, and one in ten before their 15 birthdays. It is particularly severe in West Africa especially in Ghana and Central Africa which is home to 6 of the 10 countries with the highest child marriage prevalence levels in the world, all of which have prevalence over 50%. Niger has the highest prevalence of child marriage in the world at 76%. Central African Republic (CAR) has a prevalence of 68% with Chad at 67%. The prevalence of child marriage below the age of 15 years is also very high at 14% for the region, with Chad, CAR and Niger all having prevalence rates over 25%.

An estimated 200 million girls and women alive today are believed to have been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM). The current humanitarian crisis threatens to derail the future of an entire generation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the elimination of female genital mutilation by 2030, will be disrupted, and an estimated two million additional cases of female genital mutilation will need to be averted. (UNFPA, April 2020)
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What we are doing

Millennium Child Support Group works to prevent and respond to violence, to increase access to services for survivors and to make private and public spaces safer for women and girls
Millennium Child Support Group responds to all forms of violence against women and girls, with a particular focus on domestic and family violence, sexual and gender based violence and harmful practices, femicide, trafficking in human beings and sexual and economic (labour) exploitation.
As part of our to contribute towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we are demonstrating that a significant, concerted and comprehensive investment in gender equality and ending violence can make a transformative difference in the lives of women and girls.
Millennium Child Support Group provides guidance on preventing violence against women and girls with a focus on changing the attitudes and behaviours which tolerate such violence and perpetuate gender inequality. Millennium Child Support Group Women does this by identifying good practices and sharing them with relevant stakeholders. We also provide guidance on how to improve the quality of and access to essential services

Millennium Child Support Group has been focusing on prevention on violence against women and girls. Violence against women and girls is rooted in gender-based violence, discrimination and social norms and gender-stereotypes that perpetuate such violence. Organization ensures that the rights of women and girls is respected and ensure the safety of beneficiaries of survivors/victims. We prioritizing and establishing high-level corporate leadership for gender equality. We work with various stakeholders including local governments, CSOs/CBOs /NGOs, police, faith-based organization, social workers/welfare officers health service providers, community-leaders, women’s group organizations, policy-makers, youth-groups and organizations, teachers, legal-practitioners, media, sporting clubs and beneficiaries to develop dedicated action plans to prevent and address violence against women, strengthening coordination among diverse actors required for sustained and meaningful action.

Some of the major projects implemented in the field of ending violence against women

• Promoting volunteerism to prevent violence against women and girls in the rural areas;

• A Community-based intervention to prevent violence-against-women and girls in
Aboabo, at Asawasi-constituency in the Asokore-Mampong Municipality.

• Save women and children from electoral violence at the ‘slum dwellers’ communities in the Ashanti region

• Stop violence against women & girls through community engagement in Ghana.
Focusing on prevention: Ending violence against women
Violence against women and girls is rooted in gender-based discrimination, social norms that accept violence, and gender stereotypes that continue cycles of violence. To date, efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls have mainly focused on responding to and providing services for survivors of violence. However, prevention—addressing the structural causes, as well as the risk and protective factors, associated with violence—is pivotal to eliminating violence against women and girls completely.
Prevention is the only way to stop violence before it even occurs. It requires political commitment, implementing laws that promote gender equality, investing in women’s organizations, and addressing the multiple forms of discrimination women face daily. The evidence about prevention has evolved considerably over the past decade, including as a result of various initiatives supported by UN Women.
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https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/prevention
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
On 18 December 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It entered into force as an international treaty on 3 September 1981 after the twentieth country had ratified it. By the tenth anniversary of the Convention in 1989, almost one hundred nations have agreed to be bound by its provisions.
The Convention was the culmination of more than thirty years of work by the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, a body established in 1946 to monitor the situation of women and to promote women's rights. The Commission's work has been instrumental in bringing to light all the areas in which women are denied equality with men. These efforts for the advancement of women have resulted in several declarations and conventions, of which the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women is the central and most comprehensive document.
Among the international human rights treaties, the Convention takes an important place in bringing the female half of humanity into the focus of human rights concerns. The spirit of the Convention is rooted in the goals of the United Nations: to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women. The present document spells out the meaning of equality and how it can be achieved. In so doing, the Convention establishes not only an international bill of rights for women, but also an agenda for action by countries to guarantee the enjoyment of those rights.
In its preamble, the Convention explicitly acknowledges that "extensive discrimination against women continues to exist", and emphasizes that such discrimination "violates the principles of equality of rights and respect for human dignity". As defined in article 1, discrimination is understood as "any distinction, exclusion or restriction made o.1 the basis of sex...in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field". The Convention gives positive affirmation to the principle of equality by requiring States parties to take "all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and advancement of women, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men"(article 3).
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https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CEDAW.aspx


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