The project’s strategy included informing the public about gender-based violence (GBV) and about those who have the mandate to protect the rights of women in the community. The project used different information dissemination strategies to reach specific groups. It hosted public hearings where victims of violence gave testimonies of the abuse they faced. The hearings were designed to raise awareness of legal and support aspects of violence against women and gaps in legislation, attempting to reach the public, the legislature, and other public institutions.

The project had workshops for law enforcement agencies aimed at sensitising law enforcers on issues of violence. The workshops were designed to create opportunities for participating individuals and institutions to review the situation and systems from a broader perspective; to identify problems in the system; to give practical information and identify solutions; and in combination with media coverage and advocacy, to initiate steps to change the culture of gender violence, support victims, and reduce violence against women.

Its activities focused on discussing basic gender issues, forms of violence and how they are looked at from the existing law and the constitution, the international convention signed, and the problems faced in the process of dealing with violence-against-women cases. The participants included prosecutors, judges, and the police; and the intention was to increase knowledge of women’s rights, to encourage reflection on the practical implications of this knowledge within their places of work, and to help the institutions think about how to operationalise new knowledge.

The project hosted workshops for journalists to sensitise them so they could develop more informed publications and news on violence against women and other issues related to women’s rights. It also created a radio programme, “The Voice of Eve”, that aired 52 programmes dedicated to violence against women. Though the project dealt with providing information, it also became a forum for discussing options, discovering alternatives, and holding existing service providers accountable. The radio was used as an avenue to compare experiences in the use of the existing processes, thereby monitoring the government and its institutions that deal with violence throughout the country.

Gender, Women, Rights.

The project objective was to raise awareness on violence against women and increase its profile to induce changes in attitude and behaviour within the community and the government processes. The project also aimed to influence the portrayal of women and violence in the media in order to stimulate positive change. The public hearings aimed to enable victims of violence to speak out and stimulate public debate on issues of violence.