Rural Women and Girls of Eastern Congo Seek Justice as World Celebrates International Women’s Day

By | March 8th, 2012

Today the world celebrates the 101st International Women’s Day (begun in 1911).  This year’s theme, declared by the United Nations, is “Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty,” as highlighted in this message from the UN Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon.

In countries around the world, rural women and girls are the main breadwinners in their families, in addition to being the main agricultural workforce in their communities. Yet their work is unpaid and they endure immeasurable sacrifice for their community and their families.

Rural Women and Girls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The situation of rural women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is very challenging as they don’t have regular access to health and maternal care. Customary laws and practices are very discriminatory towards women, for example, women don’t have the right to inherit properties, and access to education is mostly limited [...]

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Ugandan Women Use Video to Advocate for Psychosocial and Livelihood Support

By | October 13th, 2011

I’m pleased to share a new video from our partners the Greater North Women’s Voices for Peace Network (GNWVPN) in Uganda, and the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice. Our partnership with these organizations is part of our larger campaign aimed at ending gender-based violence in the context of armed conflict.

You may recall from my previous post that we partnered with GNWVPN and Women’s Initiatives (beginning with a training in December 2010) to support them in using video in their campaign to ensure that the specific needs of women affected by the conflict in Northern Uganda are reflected in the country’s recovery program.  The campaign’s goal is to seek full implementation of two sub areas of the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP) that include providing psychosocial and livelihood support to women affected by the previous 20+ year conflict in the Greater North.

Watch No Longer Silent: Women in Northern Uganda Demand Livelihood and [...]

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Gender Justice Activists Integrate Video for Advocacy

By | April 5th, 2011

As I’m writing from a buzzing room in Nairobi, Kenya, there are five groups of women’s rights activists editing interviews that they’ve conducted as part of a ten-day video advocacy training. Through WITNESS’ new partnership with Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice, this is the second comprehensive training that we’ve conducted (see a video report from our first training with a group from Northern Uganda) to support a push for an end to gender-based violence.

The 17 activists and their groups are campaigning to reform Sudan’s oppressive Rape law; addressing systematic rape as a weapon of war in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic; calling for the government of Kyrgyzstan to implement existing laws to address bride kidnapping, which is happening at epidemic levels; and addressing gender based violence in Kawangware, a large settlement here in Nairobi. All of these situations are occurring with total impunity [...]

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Using Video to Strengthen Northern Uganda’s Recovery Plan

By | February 4th, 2011

We are incredibly excited to be working with the Greater North Women’s Voices for Peace Network (GNWVPN) as part of our new partnership with the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice. In December, my colleagues Bukeni Waruzi, Ryan Kautz and I traveled to Kampala, Uganda to train 7 women from the GNWVPN. Read more about that training here.

The GNWVPN is a network of women activists and organizations from various communities across the North and North Eastern region of Uganda (referred to as the Greater North) that originally came together  to voice their concerns that women’s voices and needs were not being included nor adequately represented during the 2006-2008 Juba Peace Talks. Now, the GNWVPN is incorporating video into its campaign focused on how the insufficient implementation of Uganda’s recovery plan for the Greater North affects women on the ground.

This video introduces the campaign, and some of the women [...]

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Women Gather for Historic March and Speak Against Violence in War Torn Eastern Congo

By | November 23rd, 2010

As a Congolese human rights advocate from South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and WITNESS staff member, I traveled to Bukavu, a province in the eastern DRC, to participate at  in a historic women-led march where women were demanding peace and justice.  I went to support the women who were denouncing the violence against them and the endless conflict and the militarization of the eastern part of the DRC, and to conduct a video advocacy training for women’s rights activists.

About the Historic March

With more than 4,000 in attendance, this was the biggest event of its kind in eastern Congo, and it was an opportunity for the women from war-affected villages to address a massive audience in their own words. The women told accounts of the violence they’re enduring and shared experiences with women from other regions in post conflict or in active conflict situations [...]

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