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Abstract
Gender and violence are complex and contested concepts, understood in varying ways in research, policy and interventions in education. Often there has been an emphasis on acts of violence, with much less attention to the social conditions and gender relations behind these acts. This paper discusses the development of a conceptual framework emphasises not just acts and individuals, but also transformation of gendered power relations and inequities, alongside a focus on addressing the struggles and identity conflicts of everyday life. The framework has underpinned research, advocacy and community interventions in a multi-partnered project on violence against girls led by ActionAid.
Drawing on findings from a mixed methodology baseline study carried out for the project in Kenya, Ghana and Mozambique, we discuss how conceptual lenses focused on acts/individuals, institutions and interactions inform the analysis of sexual violence. We identify some tensions in using a multi-perspectival framing, yet, we argue that holding the tensions between approaches in play can be productive, yielding rich data to inform NGO interventions at community, district and national level. We conclude with some suggestions for theorizing and realizing gender justice and violence in education research and NGO partnerships.
Key words:
Gender, violence
Introduction
The United Nations World Study on Violence against Children brought to global attention the high incidence of physical, sexual and emotional violence experienced by children in and around school (Pinheiro 2006). Violence in intimate private spaces previously deemed outside the public gaze has increasingly been revealed (Leach 2006a). While the research is often piecemeal and insufficiently comprehensive (Jones et al 2008), there is an emerging picture of the gendered contours of violence, with sexual harassment, rape, assault and intimidation in schools common experiences, particularly for girls; and with implicit gender violence in the form of gender differentiated corporal punishment and bullying reinforcing gender discrimination in schools (Bott, Morrison, and Ellsberg 2005; Leach 2006a; Jones et al 2008). In the global south, many of the studies have been led by multilateral organizations (e.g. WHO, UNICEF) and international NGOs, committed to developing evidence based practice and advocacy to contest violence (e.g. Plan 2008; DevTech systems/USAID 2008; Save the Children 2011). But the continuing extensive documentation of violence in many different sites raises questions about whether the increasing knowledge base is leading to effective action or resulting in any progress in reducing levels of violence.
The ethical and methodological challenges of researching gender violence have been well documented (Ellsberg et al 2001; WHO 2001; Walby 1990; Leach 2006b). Less attention has been paid however to the conceptual challenges, over for example how we define violence. Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois (2004: 1) reflect on the voyeuristic tendency to focus on the physical acts, on the pornography of violence, missing the social and cultural dimensions that give violence its power and meaning. Should we then be researching violence at all, or does this focus represent a distraction, shifting the gaze away from underlying inequalities and injustices? Or alternatively, does attention to violence help to spotlight these through illuminating some of the visible manifestations of inequality and injustice? How then can we ensure this illumination in the ways we conceptualise violence? It is these questions that are at the heart of this paper.
Our analysis reflects on how a particular conceptualisation of violence translates into research and action in a project on violence against girls. We begin by tracing how different conceptual framings around gender and violence have informed research in education and international development, using theoretical lenses that emphasise acts and individuals, institutions or interactions. We then present a conceptual framework developed for a multi-partner project on violence against girls led by ActionAid in Kenya, Ghana and Mozambique. This framework makes explicit use of a multi-perspectival approach, attempting to harness the combined strengths of different theoretical positions. In order to assess the potential of this approach, we discuss evidence from baseline studies carried out for the project, focusing in particular on our data on sexual violence. We will also reflect on NGO actions arising from the research, and how different conceptualisations of violence may lead to particular kinds of actions. We conclude by considering the implications for theory, research and action.
Conceptual lenses in research on violence against girls
Unterhalter (2007) frames work on gender, schooling and global social justice according to interventions, institutions and interactions. Interventions, linked to WID (Women in Development) ideas, have stressed girls enrolment in school, viewing gender as a noun, and have dominated international mobilisation. Institutional approaches, viewing gender as an adjective and linked to GAD (Gender and Development) ideas, have attended to challenging gendered relations in learning and teaching. Interactions, linked to gender as human variability, have been concerned with processes of dialogue and critique, and with how local understandings can influence institutions tasked with global social justice. In our review of work on gender, violence and education, we have identified some conceptual similarities, which we have framed as focusing on acts/individuals, institutions and interactions.
Much of the work on children and violence from the 1990s has been concerned with revealing the types and extent of violence young people experience in schools and communities. Usually within a positivist tradition, research considers acts of violence, causes of perpetration and effects on individual victims and witnesses (Smith and Sharp 1994: Olweus 1993; Matthews et al 1999; Jaycox et al 2003: Seedat et al 2004; Burton 2005). Violent acts tend to be viewed as aberrations, perpetrated by individuals and associated with individual psychopathologies (Reiss et al 1993). Justice in these accounts is about individuals, with for example behavioural intervention plans for young children displaying anti-social behaviour (Jimerson and Furlong 2006) or peer support anti-bullying programmes to adjudicate between individual victims and perpetrators (Naylor and Cowie 1999).
Increasingly broad definitions of violence are being employed, including emotional and psychological harm, as well as sexual and physical violence (WHO 2002; Pinheiro 2006). However, the focus on acts and individuals has been criticised for ignoring the social conditions that produce violence, the social relationships surrounding acts of violence and the complex processes of interpretation by which people make sense of violent social relations (Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 2004; Bahun-Radunovic and Rajan 2008). Gender is frequently ignored, or relegated to being one of a series of risk factors. Leach (2006a) has noted the dearth of research on gender violence in schools internationally, with studies in Asia tending to focus on corporal punishment, in Latin America and the Caribbean on gang violence, and in North America and Europe on bullying, intimidation and assault between pupils.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, however, from the 1990s there has been much more attention to gender and to sexual violence, emerging in part from research linked to the HIV/AIDs pandemic which revealed high levels of previously hidden intimate partner violence (Wood, Maforah and Jewkes 1998; Jewkes et al 2002; Morrell et al 2009). Increasing attention to gender violence as a global policy concern was spearheaded by international womens movements, leading to the Vienna Declaration in 1993 and the United Nations Declaration on Violence Against Women (DEVAW) 1993. Feminist mobilization has influenced the development of international standards and norms on gender-based violence, which are increasingly visible in national legislation, with for example some 90 countries now having laws on domestic violence (Bunch 2009). The emphasis on violations of the right to bodily integrity unsettles the public-private divide since states are held accountable for scrutiny of violations in private as well as public spheres (Reilly 2009). Attention shifts from acts and individuals to the ways in which institutions and social structures produce violence, with violence understood as a social practice. This shift is exemplified by Iris Marion Youngs work on gender justice:
What makes violence a face of oppression is less the particular acts themselves, though these are often utterly horrible, than the social context surrounding them, which makes them possible and even acceptable. What makes violence a phenomenon of social injustice, and not merely an individual moral wrong, is its systemic character, its existence as a social practice. (Young 1990 61-62)
Within this approach, gender is viewed as relational, with unequal power relations between men and women supported and maintained by structures, laws, codes and regulations. Violence is conceptualised as the outcome of unequal and unjust social conditions, with gender relations intersecting with other dimensions like race, class, culture and the economy, as expressed through the concept of structural violence. Research using this lens focuses on how structures like patriarchy produce violence in the intimate space of the family, and through destabilising entrenched gender regimes as women move into public spaces ADDIN EN.CITE Walby19908518518516Walby, SylviaTheorising Patriarchy1990BlackwellHarber20045615615616Harber, CliveSchooling as Violence: How schools harm pupils and societieschildren and violence - internationalcorporal punishment2004LondonRoutledgeFalmer(Walby 1990). Gendered dimensions of war and conflict have also been a concern, countering the exclusion of women from discussions and interventions on conflict and peace (Moser 2001).
While GAD theorists tended to focus on women's rights rather than children's rights, structural critiques within education have examined how schools and education systems perpetuate violence (Harber 2004; Leach 2006a). Injustice in these analyses is associated with generational imbalances of power, enacted for example through authoritarian punishment and discipline systems in schools, or curricular biases which condone racist or gendered stereotypes and exclusions (Kenway and Fitzclarence 1997; Mirembe and Davies 2001; Davies 2004; Rojas Arangoitia 2011). Within this framing, actions aim to transform social structures and institutions, often through legislative change, an approach Unterhalter (2007) has termed equity-from-above. Gender justice is concerned with redressing injustice in multiple spheres, including economic, political, social and personal (Fraser 2009).
While gender justice theorists like Fraser and Young have been concerned with redistribution through institutional and structural reforms, they have been concerned also with identity politics and struggles for recognition (Young 1990; Fraser 2009). Youngs work for example, concerned both with structural inequities and complex dynamics of power within and between groups, bridges into our third framing, which focuses on interactions, and draws on poststructural and postcolonial ideas. With an emphasis on the discursive construction of gender in local contexts, attention is paid to how violence is enacted within and through everyday relationships, and subjectivities. Challenging the tendency to over-emphasise acts of violence, interactional approaches are concerned with the meanings - the intentions, consequences and reverberations in everyday lives and relationships:
Violent acts, as they are reported in the media, are distilled from the particularities of the social grounds from which they emerge, and that they, in turn, aim to modify through power. Reports tend to fetishise violence, restricting its location to forced incursions into and mutilations of bodies the beginnings and endings of violent circumstances and their meanings for individuals are much more intangible and wide ranging. (Henderson 1999: 85)
As with the institutional focus, violence is understood as relational, situated in and produced by historical and social relations, but this lens is concerned with how these broader social relations become incorporated within the emotions, beliefs and practices of individuals, and with moments of resistance. What for some may be seen as violent and destructive, for others will be viewed as legitimate and sanctioned. In this framing, gender is not seen as fixed within male or female bodies, but as performed, acted out in everyday relationships which continually reinscribe gendered norms ADDIN EN.CITE Butler19994274274276Butler, JudithGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identitygender1999London, New YorkRoutledge(Butler 1999). There is a concern with symbolic violence, the process of simultaneous recognition and mis-recognition, in which inequalities are perceived (or recognized) and taken for granted as normal (mis-recognised) through socialization (Bourdieu and Wacquant 2004). There is an emphasis on diversity within communities, with culture viewed as heterogeneous, as complex human practices of signification and representation, or organization and attribution, which are internally riven by conflicting narratives (Benhabib 2002 ix). Research with young people in schools and communities in development contexts emphasizes socio-historical situatedness, difference and complexity, with violence arising in the struggle to negotiate gendered identities ADDIN EN.CITE Bhana20055505505505Bhana, DeeviaMorrell, RobertOuzgane, LahoucineViolence and the gendered negotiation of young masculinities in South African schoolsAfrican Masculinities205-220genderchildren and violence - South Africapost-structuralism2005New YorkPalgrave(Henderson 1999; Bhana 2005; ADDIN EN.CITE ADDIN EN.CITE.DATA Dunne 2007; Humphreys 2007; Parkes 2007). This framing strives to create dialogue between girls and boys, and the adults in school, home, NGO programmes and other social contexts of their lives. Concerned with the complexity of relationships within localized settings of schools and communities, policy formations and actions of the state often appear far removed from everyday lives.
Critiques of poststructural approaches claim that they lack a theory of gender justice, paying insufficient attention to redistribution (Fraser 2003). While the focus on acts and individuals has helped to expose high rates of previously hidden violence, and the focus on institutions highlights legislative and systemic weaknesses, the focus on interactions, with its emphasis on complexity and difference, has had much less impact on policy making (Unterhalter 2007). Researchers in this area actively avoid making grandiose claims, and in so doing are open to accusations of depoliticisation. However, attention to complexity and to localized negotiations may be highly political, with gender justice understood as entailing complex processes of negotiation, subversion and small acts of resistance, or what Unterhalter (2007) has termed equity-from-below.
Recent gender justice work has attempted to resolve the tensions between the institutional and interactional paradigms through synthesis, with Fraser (2009) proposing a three dimensional theory of justice, combining redistribution, recognition and representation. Young argues for a model of deliberative democracy, in which dialogue and discussion aim to change consciousness, and to generate structural change (Young 2000; Fainstein 2007). Benhabib (2002) also proposes a dual-track approach, which focuses both on established institutions (e.g. legislature and judiciary), and on the political struggles of civil society. Taking these ideas into a school context, Arnot (2009) argues for a critical pedagogy of difference, which entails teaching approaches that deconstruct and challenge essentialist discourses of gender, and promote pedagogic democratic rights eliciting the voices of all pupils.
Eroding the conceptual barriers may have potential to build on their distinctive strengths. Understanding prevalence of acts of violence, for example, can make visible aspects of gendered power relations in families across the world (Garcia- Moreno et al 2006), influencing policy making. Focusing on the state as a site for change may be key because it is the only institution powerful enough to transform social structures (Young 2000). At the same time, close understanding of the ways that gender is performed, constructed and negotiated at local levels can bring new insights into change processes. So there seem to be compelling reasons for synthesizing approaches. But we might anticipate pitfalls, in the conceptual clashes likely to ensue. Both the pitfalls and the strengths of synthesis are evident in the Stop Violence Against Girls in School project, as we discuss below.
ActionAids project to Stop Violence Against Girls in School
The project
As an anti-poverty organization that takes a human-rights based approach, ActionAid recognizes the gendered nature of poverty and injustice:
the underlying causes of poverty and injustice are gendered. Because of their socially ascribed roles, women living in poverty have less access to land, education, networks, technology, transport, cash, decision making or control over their bodies and safety all of which keeps them poor (ActionAid, 2011 p. 10).
ActionAid is thus politically oriented towards rights and justice, and this is reflected in an approach that focuses on supporting people to claim rights and change systems, and in its specific emphasis on womens and girls rights as a cross cutting priority.
Unlike much NGO practice, which substitutes the role of the state by providing services to those in need (Rose 2010; DeStefano and Schuh Moore 2010), INGOs like ActionAid and Oxfam have increasingly worked on advocacy as well as service delivery in education (Aikman 2010). But as Aikman points out, this requires insight into how international, national and local organisations may march to different rhythms (Aikman 2010). In her analysis of Oxfams partnerships in education in Tanzania, Aikman reflects that collaboration between INGO and district education officers was more successful when the terrain for engagement was uncontroversial, as in the supply of educational materials, than in politically sensitive areas where divergent understandings and agendas emerged, over for example discriminatory attitudes and prejudices. She suggests that the way forward is for advocacy to be gently nourished through actions which have a more service delivery flavour (p.508). ActionAids approach however, has been a marked shift towards advocacy, working with coalitions and campaigns to strengthen the capacity of government schools and education systems to meet the needs of the most marginalised (Archer 2010).
The Stop Violence Against Girls in School project aims to enable girls to enjoy their rights to education and participation in a violence-free environment in three project areas in Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique. The project, funded by the Big Lottery Fund as a strategic grant, runs from 2008 to 2013. The project areas cover 45 schools within three districts one in each country (Nanumba North and South in Northern Ghana; Wenje division, Tana River District in the northern part of Coastal Province of Kenya; and Manhia, in Maputo Province in Southern Mozambique), selected on the basis of ActionAids established work programme and partnerships in the districts. The project areas in Kenya and Ghana are both remote and rural. The communities practise Islam and Christianity and combine different ethnic groups, some of whom have a history of conflict, which is often resource related. One of the groups in the Kenyan site is nomadic pastoralist, and farming is the other main source of livelihood. The project area in Mozambique contrasts somewhat. It is on the main road traversing the country, near the capital and with that it brings better communication, higher levels of mobility and migration for work (including South African mines), more diverse employment opportunities in industry and farming and higher levels of HIV/AIDS. However, all sites experience high levels of poverty, illiteracy and gender inequalities and poor access to basic services (Own and Associates 2011; Cossa et al 2011; Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition 2011).
The project aims to achieve four outcomes, which seek to ensure that in all three countries a legal and policy framework that addresses VAGS exists and is being implemented, that educational outcomes are improved, incidences of violence are reduced and girls confidence to challenge culture of violence is increased. The assumption is that advocacy and community intervention will generate change to achieve these outcomes over 5 years. These outcomes are oriented towards the institutions and acts and individuals lenses described earlier, with little obvious attention to the power relations and complexity at local level, and without explicitly upsetting the balance of gender norms and regimes that underpins more substantive forms of gender justice. The requirements of donors for measureable indicators set before the start of the project as the key means to assess success and to account for the good use of funds can constrain projects that are concerned with empowerment and social change, whose pathways may not be straightforward or linear (Cornwall and Edwards 2010). At times this may have steered attention away from understanding the complexity of power relations, interactions and how change can happen within the project contexts.
The organization of the project establishes partnerships with a diversity of national implementing partners ranging from community-based organizations to research institutes, universities, campaign coalitions, advocacy organisations and child rights networks in each of the three countries. Research organizations gather evidence to help influence policy change and the community level interventions in the three project areas, and there is a link between advocacy work at the national and local levels. The approach has many strengths, as partner organizations inform and learn from each others work. At the same time, their insights and approaches often differ. The partnership consists of advocacy organizations focused on institutional change. Some research organisations that have a history of NGO consultancy evaluations may tend towards acts (to measure impact), whilst others oriented more towards qualitative work may be more concerned with interactions, and community partners may also be more mindful of everyday interactions. Aware from the start of the project about the constraints posed by the project outcomes and in recognition of the diversity of the project partnership, our approach has been to expand the four project outcomes and create a space for dialogue through the development of a conceptual framework.
The research
Recognising the diverse understandings within the project partnership, in a workshop at the outset of the project in 2008, partners discussed the meanings of gender and violence, and decided to incorporate all three of the conceptual lenses discussed in section 2 above for the project work on implementation and advocacy and particularly to guide the research. The project is concerned with acts of physical, sexual and emotional violence, and it needs this evidence to influence policy and guide interventions. It is concerned about the institutions, social conditions and unequal gender relations that produce violence. Finally it is concerned with the ways in which girls negotiate conflict, discrimination and violence in their everyday interactions and relationships.
[INSERT FIGURE 1]
The project developed a conceptual framework diagram (see figure 1) which portrays this representation. The team identified economic, socio-cultural, political and educational structures and policy frameworks as creating conditions that produce and reinforce violence against girls in school. These form the outer circles of the diagram. Closer to the centre of the diagram are the everyday interactions in girls lives where violence is performed and resisted. Examples of different forms of violence are included in the diagram, which are made visible through the different lenses. There has been much debate in the project partnership as to the extent that the focus should be on girls or gender relations, mirroring the tensions between the WID and GAD approaches. The project design, outcomes and even title all point to a focus on girls and this in the end has steered the work, and influenced the conceptual framework, where there is a girl in the centre rather than a group of girls and boys.
The first major piece of research for the project was a baseline study conducted in 2009 (XXX and XXX 2011). The research questions broadly mirrored the four project outcomes, but tried to reflect all three lenses more prominently through looking at patterns of violence, how they linked to the economic, social and political context, and the gendered school environment, and how they are situated in girls every day interactions and relationships. The research thus employed a mixed methodology, combining broad survey tools with 1839 girls, boys, and teachers and collection of administrative data from the 45 schools, with in depth interviews and focus groups, where we were able to explore meanings attributed to violence and gender inequalities from the perspectives of girls and others and uncover power dynamics and sometimes contradictions in perceptions and social relations. Table 1 summarises the total sample across the three countries.
Table 1: Study sample
InstrumentSampleSurveysGirls in school (aged 8-10, 11-13, 14-17)1082Boys in school (aged 8-10, 11-13, 14-17)519Teachers 238Total1839Qualitative interviews:Head teacher 44School Management Committee representative44Community leader 41Womens group leader 42Girls in school (aged 8-10, 11-13, 14-17)78Boys in school (aged 8-10, 11-13, 14-17)75District health officer3District education officer3Police2Total332Focus Group DiscussionsParents: Focus group discussion (44 FGDs)220Girls in school (aged 8-10, 11-13, 14-17) (36 FGDs)252Girls out of school (aged 8-17) (10 FGDs)70Total542 Total study sample2713
The research was given ethical approval by the Institute of Educations Research Ethics Committee, and a research protocol was developed to guide the research design, training of research teams, and analysis. To ensure girls voices were prioritized, we oriented the sample towards girls, including girls who were out of school. We aimed to pay attention to power dynamics and to the sensitivity of the issues under investigation, for example interviewing pupils and parents in single sex groups, and using non-threatening activities with children such as drawing and ranking. We aimed to minimize social distance by identifying research teams who spoke the local language and where possible were from the local area. Girls were always interviewed by female researchers.
Aware of how concepts such as violence and gender are understood differently, and the risk of under-reporting and misreporting, we paid careful attention to the wording of questions avoiding terms like rape, abuse and violence that are loaded and open to interpretation and instead asked questions about specific acts (such as being beaten or slapped), places (such as home or school or church), and people (such as teachers, parents or other pupils). We developed protocols to promote the safety and wellbeing of research participants, working with ActionAid to follow child protection policies. Despite all the care and attention we paid to conducting child friendly research, the nature of the baseline study (large in scale and scope and short in time) meant that it was difficult to build up the high levels of trust that are ideal for research on violence, and we are aware of under-reporting, silences and taboos (see also Ellsberg et al 2001; Mullender et al 2002; Price and Hawkins 2002).
Our analysis draws on data collected through this study to explore how the three conceptual lenses described above are articulated in the project. Taking each lens in turn, we will consider related research findings and interventions that emerge from these. We focus in particular on our data on sexual violence, since this data seems to encapsulate some of the conceptual struggles over meaning. We will highlight some of the tensions and the benefits of using this synthetic approach within the project partnership.
An emphasis on acts and individuals
Violence took many forms in girls lives in the three project districts, and in the baseline study 86% of girls in Kenya, 82% in Ghana, and 66% in Mozambique said that they had experienced some form of violence in the past 12 months. Physical violence as punishment was particularly widespread. Though not as common as physical or psychological violence, significant numbers of girls in the baseline study talked of having experienced sexual violence, as illustrated in figure 2. Girls named other pupils as responsible for the greater number (on average nearly two-fifths) of most recent instances, followed by community members. Family members, boyfriends and teachers were mentioned in a smaller number of cases.
Figure 2: Proportion of primary school-going girls aged 8-17 who admitted experiencing sexual violence, by type and country.
Whilst the extreme cases of sexual violence (i.e. rape cases) tended to be talked about widely within communities, and were more likely to be reported and responded to, it was the low level violence that occurred more frequently yet was often ignored, including sexual comments, peeping or touching. Both girls and boys talked about the everyday nature of sexual harassment of girls:
The toilet and the urinal are not safe, so is the path to the borehole. This is because boys peep at girls and sometimes touch their breasts. They also look at their private parts when they are defecating (Girls focus group, aged 14-17, Ghana).
One day a boy approached me from the back and touched my breasts. This happens to other girls in school and in the village. Sometimes they touch other girls buttocks and thighs on our way to school, they hide in the bush and scare us, sometimes they also approach us and we run away. (Girl, aged 13, Kenya.)
Whilst many girls and boys mentioned that this happened when teachers were out of the classroom, during break or on the way home, and some spoke of teachers taking some action in punishing the boy if the situation was reported, the fact that boys and girls tended to talk about this as a fact of school life suggests an informal sanctioning of these practices.
As in other studies (DevTech Systems 2008; Jones et al 2008), we found that girls often did not report the violence they experienced, particularly in cases of physical and psychological violence, which were connected to punishment from adults. As we see in table 2, girls were most likely to take action on sexual violence in Kenya and least likely in Mozambique, and in all three countries more likely to take some form of action on the more extreme violence such as forced sex than the more every day violence like peeping and sexual comments. They were also less likely to take action upon being coerced for sex in exchange for goods.
Table 2: Percentage of girls experiencing each type of violence who took no action
Taking no actionPeepingTouchingCommentsForced sexSex for goodsKenya31.917.321.29.421.9Ghana 60.042.663.242.945.5Mozambique56.164.750.050.061.5
Where girls did not challenge forms of sexual violence, it was often because of their doubts that they would be supported, and fear of blame or shame being brought on their families. While many girls did talk about reporting sexual violence that happens in the community, girls occasionally talked of fear of reporting sexual violence involving a teacher: If a teacher is the perpetrator I could shut myself up because my mom would say that I wanted it, and besides that the teacher can fail me (13 year old girl, Mozambique). At home the risks of disclosure seemed even higher, with many girls afraid of causing problems in their families.
Actions girls took in response to violence included physically or verbally challenging the perpetrator, telling friends, or reporting to family members or occasionally school authorities. There have tended to be higher levels of response from schools, families and communities (for example, punishing the perpetrator or reporting onwards through official channels) in cases of sexual violence than other forms of more accepted physical and psychological forms of violence. However, these tend to be the more extreme cases of rape rather than the everyday forms of sexual violence. Few cases of peeping, touching and sexual comments were reported to the families of the perpetrators, community leaders or school management.
For the more extreme forms of sexual violence where action was taken men were often not held accountable, sometimes with the girl being asked to forgive. Sometimes parents of perpetrators and victims meet to discuss the issue, and in some cases village elders adjudicate, though there were different views on how effective this has been: Reporting issues of forced sex to the elders does not solve the problems because they only ask the parties to forgive each other; the chief is also not keen to end early marriages.(FGD with mothers, Kenya).
Informal community fines and forced marriage were common responses to sexual violence cases resulting in pregnancy, where in poor communities justice may be seen in economic rather than gender justice terms, with the emphasis on the rapist accepting some form of financial responsibility for his actions. Girls expressed dissatisfaction about the outcomes of their reported cases, with 66% of girls in Ghana, 55% in Mozambique and 48% in Kenya not satisfied with how cases had been handled.
These findings on acts of violence have helped to have a strong impact in the countries by bringing gender violence to the public agenda. In Kenya, for example, the Commission for Human Rights has committed to expanding both its approach to violence (taking more into consideration gender violence that is part of life in schools and communities, rather than just as a product of armed conflict) and its geographical coverage to open regional offices. In Mozambique, advocacy work using evidence on acts of sexual violence has been successful in engaging government support in tackling violence against girls. In 2011, in collaboration with UNICEF and other civil society organizations, the Mozambique government launched a campaign called Tolerncia Zero contra o Abuso Sexual da Criana. The campaign video urges people to speak out and report cases to the police; however evidence from the projects implementation area shows that despite the best will the local police are simply incapable of responding to such cases. A combination of lack of personnel, training, confidential child-friendly and gender sensitive spaces, and even the simplest resources (pens, paper, log-books) means that in most cases, the police themselves tend to refer such cases as are reported to them to the projects implementing partner, AMUDEIA. Without strengthening institutional capacity, such interventions, focused on individual victims reporting individual acts, will remain simply a noble idea.
At the local level, the emphasis on individuals as perpetrators of violence can steer towards punitive rather than preventive approaches. For example, in Ghana the project initiated the development of a network of local activists known as Community Advocacy Teams who act as a link between communities and formal justice systems, where cases are taken up prior to reporting on to the police. Some research participants have suggested that this may be having a deterrent effect on potential perpetrators. But if this is rooted primarily in a fear of the consequences without upsetting the balance of the gender regimes that underlie the violence, once funding for the project comes to an end it is not clear whether the deterrent effect will persist.
Paradoxically, the emphasis on acts and individuals seems to be the easiest to turn into concrete actions, but these actions may be limited by their oversimplification, and may detract from or fail to address unjust institutional structures, or the low level everyday harassment that girls experience, and hence may be the least effective actions in terms of affecting sustainable change in reducing gender violence or achieving gender justice.
An emphasis on institutions
An institutional lens enables us to examine how the formal structures around girls may produce or reinforce violence and also how they can, and sometimes do, support the challenging of violence. The study found that reporting mechanisms were very weak in all three countries. Of the 585 girls who reported experiencing some form of sexual violence in the study, only 19 cases were referred through official channels including the School Management Committee (SMC), District Education officials or police (see table 3). In Mozambique no cases at all were referred. In Kenya and Ghana a small number of cases were reported to more formal channels, mostly to the SMC, with perhaps parents (or girls themselves) regarding these as more accessible and part of the community. These findings suggest that if girls report violence at all they tend to go to family members, but then cases do not reach the formal system or even the school. A tiny minority of girls who experienced violence were supported with care, counselling or health advice: approximately one in a hundred Kenyan girls who had experienced violence and less than one in two thousand in Ghana and Mozambique.
Table 3: Violence against girls reaching formal systems
%MozGhanaKenyaCases that reached formal channels05.13.4Cases where girls said they received counselling or health care0.040.051.05
In addition, some interviewees raised concerns about the quality or type of support provided by these services. Health services were rarely seen as sources of support, and in Kenya parents complained about charges applied to examine girls (for example in post-rape examinations and provision of post exposure prophylaxis (PEP), if they are available at all, and in pre/post-natal services), and saw the provision of condoms from some clinics as encouraging promiscuity. Parents in all three countries voiced criticisms of the police, with parents in Kenya and Ghana referring to how police demanded money from complainants or victims, and parents in Mozambique criticising them for not taking cases to court. There was however some awareness of the difficulties police face when parents withdraw their complaints, making it difficult to follow through prosecution. Services were inadequately resourced and staff had received little training or support in dealing with cases of gender violence. Attempts to respond were hampered by dysfunctional systems and communication channels between the various agencies. In general, however, across the three project areas in discussions with girls and their parents we found few examples of good practice in the official systems, with parental concerns relating to poorly resourced services, corruption, and at times a disconnect between officials and communities in the understandings of gender and violence.
The institutional lens can also shine a spotlight on the school as a site for perpetuating or challenging gender violence and injustices. For example, study findings highlighted high levels of drop out for girls, often related to pregnancy, marriage or the need for labour, and widening gender gaps in attainment at the upper levels of primary schooling. There was low representation of females in the teaching staff, on management committees and in leadership positions. Toilets for girls were unsafe and inadequate. Sexual violence and harassment often went unpunished and there were no school policies on making schools safe spaces where violence and gender inequalities were challenged.
These findings highlight the gender regimes and economic conditions that play such an important role in determining girls schooling and futures, particularly as they enter their teenage years and face expectations of marrying early, and associated pregnancy and child bearing. Sexual activity, whether consensual, coerced or forced often results in girls becoming pregnant, all too often putting an end to their education. Policies on supporting the education rights of pregnant schoolgirls and young mothers have different status in each of the three countries, with, at the time of the study, no official policy in Ghana, very uneven implementation in Kenya, and in Mozambique the policy stipulated girls attending night school, where distances can be long and girls often fear for their safety. In all three countries the institutions lens has focused project advocacy strategies towards this issue. There has been some progress made at national level, but changes are hampered by concerns among education officials and communities that this may send a wrong message about teenage sex. In a related vein, mixed messages have been conveyed within the project about sex education, with knowledge about sexuality, contraceptives and other services seen by some as leading to promiscuity and therefore such knowledge is seen as needing to be regulated (Loforte 2007).
Whilst a focus on institutions helps to highlight the structural inequalities and is useful for advocacy work which has the potential to make change at the state level and potentially impact whole populations, this lens does not tell us what makes it so difficult for policies to be locally enacted. The emphasis tends to be top-down, and may not acknowledge the complexity and diversity in understandings of gender, violence and sexuality, the role symbolic violence plays, and how gendered identities are performed in schools and communities. In the next section we will look at how applying the interactional lens can help guide towards a richer understanding of how change can happen at the local level.
An emphasis on interactions
While the gender regimes in all three contexts sharply delineate male and female norms, analysis at the interactional level of perspectives on young peoples sexual activity illustrates the complexity of these negotiations. Across the three settings, sexual relationships among school going young people were disapproved of, and most school girls in our study denied that they had boyfriends. The boundaries of consent and coercion are blurred when all teenage sexual activity is viewed as illicit and therefore often labelled violent, as illustrated in this extract from a focus group with mothers:
Sexual violence in the school is rampant among the pupils themselves. Girls at the age of 15 are already mature enough to go with their male pupils in the school. The boys would touch them on the breast or buttocks as they come out from classroom during tea or lunch break. Some of these girls would report to their parents at home but others seem to enjoy it (mothers FGD, Kenya).
Girls who transgress feminine norms of humility, chastity and compliance by engaging in sexual activity were perceived simultaneously as victims of violence, and as to blame for transgressing femininity codes. Masculinity on the other hand was associated with strength, being able to provide, and often with sexual predation:
Boys touch girls a lot and girls do nothing, since in a way it is like very normal to do that (13 year old boy, Kenya).
The girls report to their mothers and aunties but the mothers and aunties tell them that they are not telling the truth. Parents tell girls that those boys shouldnt be taken serious as they are just brothers joking with them (14-17 year old girls FGD, Kenya).
Children like money a lot; they go after older men and these men end up committing sexual abuse (fathers FGD, Mozambique).
While aggressive pursuit of girls was condoned, girls who fall prey to male sexual desire may be disbelieved or blamed for not taking action themselves. Boys and men are excused, while girls are made responsible for boys sexual manoeuvres.
Girls were also held morally to blame for transactional sex. Although in the baseline study relatively few schoolgirls said they had exchanged sex for goods/grades themselves (5.4% in Mozambique, 9.5% in Kenya, 4.2% in Ghana), the more commonplace discussions about exchange sex in focus groups signal that our statistical data may understate the extent of these practices. Girls out of school in Ghana and Kenya talked of being coerced to have sex in exchange for money, both when they had been attending school and in the community. In all three countries, the economic roots of exchange sex were described:
Some girls give themselves to older men at night, so that they can buy school material and pay transport to go to school (police officer, Mozambique).
Sanitary towels, underwear which some parents tend to neglect, and so the girls tend to fall into the trap of the men who give them such things (male SMC member, Kenya)
Young men use money to coerce some girls to have sex with them, especially those whose parents cant care for them (out of school girls FGD Ghana).
Poverty exacerbated girls vulnerability to these forms of coerced sex. But frequently girls were seen as to blame. In some cases, they were castigated for indiscipline:
The main problems happen with girls, because when they start dating they no longer pay attention in school and dont have positive performance. Girls are the problem because they dont listen to what their parents and teachers say. Girls are frequently pregnant at a young age and end up dropping out (fathers FGD, Mozambique).
"In my opinion, I attribute this (teenage pregnancy) to lack of discipline among the girls, Parents have talked to them but there is no change" (father in school management committee, Kenya).
For some community members, the perceived increasing unruliness of girls is linked to the influence of modernity. A male head teacher in Mozambique for example spoke of the degradation of moral values, which he associated with children dropping out of school to seek work in the local sugar factory or in South Africa. A male community leader in Kenya proposed that the way to solve gender violence was:
Do not allow girls to walk alone at night. Parents are always advised not to allow their girls to engage in the activities that can end up affecting them such as discos or videos (Community leader, Kenya).
As well as indiscipline, some community members saw greed as a driving force, as well as the desire for fashion:
The greed for Money, fashionable clothing and other goods, makes that girls let themselves be impregnated by older men, which leads to their dropout. (Male SMC member, Mozambique)
Indiscipline among children can lead to prostitution leading to pregnancy. In addition, improper dressing attracts the opposite sex, also leading to immature sexual relations and in turn leading to pregnancy. (fathers FGD, Ghana)
Mode of dressing This attracts the opposite sex hence leading to sexual harassment (fathers FGD, Kenya)
Adults in the communities across the three contexts seemed to lament the shifts in femininities towards greed, fashion, sexualisation and unruliness, which were associated with increasing influence of modernity.
Girls own accounts of transactional sex illuminate a range of motivations, and levels of coercion. As found in other studies (e.g. Luke and Kurtz 2002; Heslop 2008) some girls actively seek sexual relationships with older men to acquire luxuries, like body oil, stockings or mobile phones, and perhaps in the hope for love and marriage:
Pocket money that I was given was very little so I resolved to follow boys to give me money so I got pregnant after having an affair with my boy friend who used to support me (out of school girls FGD, Kenya)
While in this quote the young woman recognises the economic roots of her actions, she seems to hold herself responsible for the pregnancy. Rarely is the blame placed on men or boys, and gendered injustice seems to remain invisible, through processes of symbolic violence in which everyday practices and attitudes reiterate girls responsibility for unwanted pregnancy, exchange sex and sexual violence.
The interactional lens helps sheds light on the complex ways in which female sexuality is policed in these communities. While clearly teenage sexual activity happens, it is shrouded in secrecy, and the borders between consent and coercion remain unclear. Talking openly about how to negotiate healthy sexual relationships and contraception is not sanctioned, and this makes NGO intervention on these themes extremely difficult, risking hostility from community members. Understanding the complexity of these issues illuminates why it is that the institutional strategies discussed above concerning sex education and re-entry policies for pregnant schoolgirls and unmarried mothers have been so difficult for the project.
A key strategy deployed in the SVAGS project at the interactional level has been girls clubs. Girls clubs may provide a site for deconstructing the gender discourses that silence and constrain girls agency. They may encourage critical self-reflection and questioning. It may be possible to identify dissenting voices, for example, of girls who seem to recognise processes of symbolic violence, and to support them as a strategy for change. But the interactional lens shows how there are no easy answers, and managing these processes within the clubs is highly skilled, likely to require ongoing training and support for club matrons. Separate clubs for girls also risks alienating other community members, who, as the interactional lens makes clear, have diverse and often conflicting perspectives. Girls clubs are a start, but also needed are mechanisms to enable girls to discuss their concerns with boys and adults.
The interactional lens, while focusing at the local community level, also illuminates institutional weaknesses, and the importance of actions at multiple levels to effect change. Community intervention partners may be able to create dialogue and debate within communities, but to be effective they need the support of local and national structures. Girls need to have access to sexual and reproductive advice and resources at local health services, for example. Schools need to have training in and resources to teach a sex education curriculum that deals sensitively with these complex and emotionally charged issues in ways that do not blame girls or hold them responsible for boys sexuality as well as their own. People in institutions, like the police, also need training that includes reflection and dialogue on these issues. And the economic constraints that lead girls bodies to be comodified need to be addressed through poverty reduction initiatives.
Conclusion
We opened this paper with the provocative question of whether we should be focusing attention of research and project work on violence at all, if by doing so we are distracting attention away from underlying inequalities and injustices of daily lives. We conclude that violence is a valid object for investigation, so long as it is carefully conceptualized. Through a multi-perspectival framing that combines emphases on acts/individuals, institutions and interactions we have tried to ensure that attention to violence helps to illuminate inequalities and injustices. Bringing the three lenses into dialogue with each other has many strengths. For research, it generates a comprehensive analysis of violence against girls. In a multi-partnered project it enables dialogue between partners with diverse histories, expertise and professional roles. Combining the acts/individuals lens with the institutional lens enables action at the level of the state, where the potential to influence change is strongest (Young 2000). The interactional lens, however, recognises the heterogeneity of perspectives and helps highlight the need for dialogue in addressing symbolic violence and helping change happen at local level.
The approach also has some limitations, notably in the continuing pull of acts. It is as if the fetishising and pornography of violence about which we readily criticize the media (Henderson 1999; Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 2004) continue to tempt us as researchers and activists. We find ourselves drawn to the authority of quantitative data, with qualitative data often being used to illustrate the figures, but with a tendency to instance the most memorable, often most extreme instances rather than the everyday mundane examples. The objectives agreed with funders, some of the advocacy elements, and the pressure to demonstrate measurable change, bring us back repeatedly to an emphasis on evidence that numbers of acts are reducing, despite our cautions about the unreliability of quantitative data, since perspectives on violence are so subjective. While the research findings have influenced action at an institutional level, we have found that structural dimensions may be eclipsed, with the emphasis on strengthening mechanisms to punish or protect individual perpetrators/victims, rather than addressing underlying structural inequalities. Reilly (2009) provides a possible explanation in her reflection on feminist mobilization in the 1990s. She suggests that policy makers may be more receptive to addressing gender violence than sexual or reproductive rights because of the links to civil rights norms and prohibitions against egregious acts of physical violence (p. 91). Visible acts of violence are hard for policy makers to ignore, and action at the level of individual violations may be relatively uncontroversial. At community level too, it may be easier for an NGO to focus on delivery of services than to address discriminatory attitudes (Aikman 2010). In other words, taking action on violence may be possible without disrupting entrenched gender norms.
Perhaps therefore, the attempt to synthesise conceptual approaches risks becoming too diffuse, unable to resist the pull of acts/individuals. On balance, we conclude that the strengths of synthesis outweigh its drawbacks, and that there may be ways to counterbalance the limitations. Firstly, we argue for maintaining a reflexive consciousness of the pull of acts. Built into the design of project outcomes and donor deliverables, a conceptual framework can specify how understanding (and changing) acts of violence requires attention to everyday interactions and institutions. But it is not just at the start of a project that concepts need to be discussed and frameworks agreed. Our findings remind us of the need repeatedly to return to the gendered identities, norms and expectations that are easily forgotten and to have regular dialogue in project partnerships.
Second, we suggest that it is particularly important to forefront the interactions lens. Following the baseline studies discussed in this paper, we are now working on qualitative longitudinal studies through which we hope to reach greater depth in our understandings about the complex processes of continuity and change in girls lives than was possible in a single, short period of data collection for the baseline studies. We hope to learn about moments of resistance. Our recent discussions within the partnership about community based work have paid increasing attention to discordant voices and the unevenness of change. Discussions about sexual violence, for example, have involved exploring local understandings about femininity, masculinity and sexuality, as well as the complex meanings of coercion. Mapping out the diverse perspectives at local levels, analyzing what drives and hinders change, helps to develop flexible, responsive and sensitive programming, with continuous dialogue between research and action. Within communities, substantive discussions need to involve girls, including those who are most marginalized through for example being denied access to school, as well as boys, parents, teachers, male and female community and religious leaders. Special attention needs to be placed on identifying and amplifying voices that may recognise symbolic violence and critique inequitable gender norms. District officials in health, education, police and NGOs are also key, along with actors at the state level. Gender justice, we conclude, needs to combine interactional ideas about deconstruction and critique of discourses of gender and violence, with shifting institutional norms and practices that silence girls voices and prohibit resistance. Although looking at the interactional level alone does not lend itself to engaging with wider political processes required for work towards gender justice, it is the synergy between these two approaches that can make gender justice real.
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In Kenya, Ghana and Mozambique, a legal and policy framework that specifically addresses violence against girls in school exists and is being implemented at all levels
Violence against girls by family members, teachers and peers in the intervention districts is reduced by 50% from baseline statistics
In the portfolio intervention districts, enrolment of girls is increased by 22%, girls' drop out rate decreases by 20% and substantial progress is made towards gender parity in education
14,000 girls in the portfolio intervention districts demonstrate the confidence to challenge the culture of violence in and around schools, report incidents and create peer support networks.
These are in Kenya: Own and Associates (research) and Girl Child Network (GCN) (community and advocacy work); Mozambique: Eduardo Mondlane University (research), AMUDEIA (community) and MEPT Movimento de Educao para Todos (advocacy); Ghana: Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC) (research and advocacy) and Songtaba (community work).
What are the constraints upon and opportunities for combating gender violence, discrimination and inequalities within legislative and policy frameworks and their implementation, at national, state and local community level?
What patterns of violence do girls experience in schools, homes and communities? How are these situated in girls everyday interactions and relationships? How are these linked to the political, social and economic context?
What are the gendered patterns of enrolment, completion and achievement in the project schools? What variations are there between the schools, and how do these compare with district and national patterns? What are the links with gender relations and violence?
What mechanisms are there for girls to contest violence, to express their perspectives and to influence decisions about matters that concern them? How can these be expanded?
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