- July 9, 2024
- Posted by: Dream_liner
- Categories: Blog, Policy Engagement, Weehub News
(L to R) Hub’s Advocacy Lead, Prof. Grace Ngare, leads the policy dialogue, Policy dialogue Participants
The KU-WEE Hub engaged the coastal counties of Kilifi, Mombasa and Tana River in a policy dialogue on key policy issues emanating from a study on Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
The policy workshop, which also attracted stakeholders from the private sector, entailed insightful discussions of the study findings as well as the way forward in the fight against the vice.
The study on Gender Based Violence as a Constraint to Women’s Work aimed at determining the effectiveness of services offered by selected Gender-Based Violence Recovery Centers (GBVRC)/Gender Violence Recovery Centers (GVRC) in facilitating the recovery of GBV survivors, establishing the economic cost of GBV on women survivors who had graduated from selected GBVRCs/GVRC before 2020 and establishing the extent to which skills and experiences gained from the selected GBVRCs/GVR led to women’s economic empowerment
Findings reveal that:
- The typical GBV survivor is within reproductive and economically productive
- GBVRCs do not Have Economic Empowerment Component
- Survivors Medical, Legal, Shelter, Psychological, Police Action, family/child support
- GBV has both direct (lost/damaged property; medical, transport, legal, counseling, accommodation, etc) and indirect costs ( lost hours of work (domestic and formal), children’s school days, cost of relocation and change of schools)
Key policy recommendations emanating from the study include:
- State run (County & National Government) GBVRCs ought to include economic empowerment in the menu of services given to GBV survivors
- The need for elaborate digitized GBV data collation platform in counties. Such data would cover all forms of GBV experienced, contexts, influencing factors etc
- GBVRCs should take all data on costs incurred while offering services to survivors for use in budgeting accountable management of resources.
Policy makers appreciated the enormous impact of GBV on the economy of the counties, citing lack of awareness as one of the key challenges in the fight against it. They agreed on the need to mainstream GBV across all sectors and the entrenchment of GBV education in the school curriculum starting as early as Early Childhood Education.