Women’s empowerment ‘vital’ to stop gender based violence

"Women's empowerment is vital to stop man-inflicted violence," former president of Ireland Mary Robinson has told a seminar organised by the Irish Consortium on Gender Based Violence (ICGBV).

“We have to address the equality and empowerment of women as part of this. We have to value women’s rights in every country,” she said. The world has to give “a sense to the girl child that she is as important as her brothers.”

Ms Robinson, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, was addressing Irish and international experts on gender-based violence in Dublin.

The seminar heard that gender-based violence is a human rights violation and a serious obstacle to women’s progress in all areas of life including health, education, work and participation in society.

Tom Meagher, whose late wife Jill was raped and murdered in Australia in 2012, spoke about men's role in ending violence against women.

“We need to implement a lot of educational programmes that teach people about equality. Equality is the key to this,” he said.

Mr Meagher was critical of “anti-feminist misconceptions” in some men’s groups. “Often in the work we do, we get a backlash, especially from men. They feel that by focusing on gender, we are denying the existence of violence against men,” he said.

“I don’t like going to men’s rights groups because I think that they are involved with perpetuating the status quo,” he said. “Men’s violence is not just one type of violence amongst many types of violence, it is a violation of global human justice.”

He said that “impunity and power can become inseparable”.

Nobel Prize nominee and former attorney general of Guatemala Claudia Paz y Paz agreed that policies promoting equality were vital, but said that using the law to deal with violence against women has been invaluable.

Fiona Sampson, a leading human rights lawyer in Canada and director of The Equality Effect, had flown in from Nairobi to report on the progress made by the 160 Girls Project.

All of the speakers agreed using human rights law to vindicate the rights of girls was vital. “We know that the law can be used to pry open justice for these women and girls,” Sampson said.

The 160 Girls project is using Kenyan law to pursue the girls’ cases through the courts. The girls range in age from three to 18. They are all victims of sexual violence. Sampson is now working with the Kenyan police towards establishing best practice in sexual assault cases.

Sean Sherlock, Minister of State at Department of Foreign Affairs, said that he was "delighted to reaffirm my department's commitment to the Consortium on Gender Based Violence.

“It is at the core of our work to prioritise gender equality and women’s empowerment,” he said.

The ICGBV is made up of Irish human rights, humanitarian and development organisations, Irish Aid and the Defence Forces and works to address and to promote a coherent and coordinated response to gender-based violence.

Mary Robinson has been patron of the consortium since its foundation nearly a decade ago.

She talked of her work as the UN special envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes region.

"The saddest country I have visited recently is the Central African Republic, where I have seen terrible things, especially violence against women."

Violence against women must be looked at when emergency aid is being delivered anywhere, she said.

“There should be zero-tolerance to gender-based violence. Everyone, in all organisations, needs to stand up in communities and say this is not acceptable. It is intolerable,” she said.

Ms Robinson pointed out that “restorative justice is the most powerful thing that can happen to a victim.”

It is “important to tackle impunity”, she said.