By Joyce Namugambe
As the rate of Gender based violence cases in the country increase, Minority Africa under the FSPI PISCCA project has come up and engaged Boarder Dialogues to discuss means and find the way forward on how to fight the act to see people live violent free lives in their societies and the country at large.
In a bid to put the move to reality, Minority Africa in collaboration with other partners staged dialogues together with training journalists to ensure that they write and produce stories that create awareness to the public on Gender Based violence, how it happens, its effects and how to come out and fight against it in different angles.
Such angles include educating women on what is Gender based violence since most of them suffer from the act and take things normal and don’t even know that they are being abused. Another angle has been seen when men have been engaged and educated on how to live peaceful lives in the societies they live in since men at most times are seen as the leading abusers and violators towards women.
In this, Minority Africa held an event at Media Challenge Initiative in Kabalagala to highlight more on how to overcome the vice.
During the event, panelists from different organisations discussed their views on how best it can be fought to zero among the public.
One of the panelists, Betty Mujungu, a journalist from Voice Of Africa Tororo, emphasised that according to statistics, however much there are men who undergo Gender based violence at different levels, women suffer from the act more. Betty noted that there are very many injustices that happen to women in different spaces siting places of work where some employers consider paying men earlier than women.
Betty therefore called upon journalists to raise awareness in communities and continue with the conversations that highlight Gender based violence, its effects and how to fight against it among people in the societies so that it can be completely washed away.
Geoffrey Oyat, another panelist narrated that he has been working in societies and seen how Gender Based Violence manifests among people. According to Geoffrey, men highly suffer from GBV though they don’t have enough spaces to come out and speak. He noted that men go through phycological GBV more than women noting that this attracted him and the people he works with to train men and monitor them about how to live in violent free societies to see that they come up with responsible men in their communities.
He emphasised that unless men are engaged more and educated about GBV and its effects, it can never be completely washed away since they have more issues that they engage in that lead to GBV.
Minority Africa also went an extra mile to take a legal perspective and see how GBV cases can be reduced. A legal Officer from FIDA Uganda Omega Aloyo revealed that culture is so entrenched into people that they take violation and abuses normal, thereby showing the need to find out about culture and norms that people believe in so that they can get the right approach of education people on GBV to avoid contradicting with their culture, as according to her, this can effectively provide a good platform for such people to listen and respond towards the cause.
However, Omega revealed that according to the National Survey on Violence in Uganda, 95% of women have experienced sexual violence around the country as 1 in 3 girls are forced into first sexual encounter. She noted that girls should be given enough access to education as educated women are confident enough to fight for their rights compared to the uneducated.
In a similar perspective, Carol Beyanga another journalist highlighted the need for people to learn on how to speak against GBV using a proper language that can leave the victim not offended in any way so that that they can respond to the common cause.
Minority Africa has taken the move to fight against GBV in partnership with the French Embassy, FIDA Uganda, Frauen Initiative Uganda among others.
