“REWRITING” THE SCHEMA AND SCRIPTSFOR THE GENDER ROLES:

A NECESSARY FIRST STEP TO PREVENT GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN DRC

Violeta COJOCARU, July 2013

GENERAL CONTEXT

• HDI rating: 186 out of 186 in 2012. More than 70% of the 71 mln population below the poverty line.

• 142 out of 146 of the Gender Inequality Index (3 indicators) and the worst place in the world to be a mother: Save the Children, 2013 (5 indicators).

• 8 percent of women in the present National Assembly (November 2011 elections).

• Rape largely used as a weapon in armed conflicts in East, but also frequent & unreported in everyday life.

• Nearly 2 out of 3 women have suffered from physical violence at some point since age 15.– almost half have experienced it in the year preceding the

research– married women reported twice the rate compared to single

women– women who worked & were paid in cash reported higher levels

of violence

GENERAL CONTEXT (2)

• 2 women die every hour in DRC due to pregnancy or while giving birth.

– Maternal mortality is 540/100,000

– Almost a quarter of which is due to pregnancy among 15-19 years old.

• More than 200 babies are born to every 1,000 teenage girls.

• Fertility rate 5.5 - 5.9.

• The contraceptive use: 21 per cent for any method and 6 per cent for modern methods.

• Half of women aged 15 - 24 literate (total of 67 per cent literate people over age 15).

• Girls tend to drop school much more often (gender parity index 0.93 in primary grades and 0.81 in secondary years).

LEGAL NORMS

• DRC has ratified the CEDAW and other international protocols on gender equality

• The Law on sexual violence from 2006 , but no specific domestic violence law in DRC and spousal abuse is not specifically addressed.

• Early marriage is customary and legal: girls can marry legally at 15, boys at 18.

• The Family Code (from 1981), decrees that men are the head of household and women must obey them:

– A woman must obtain her husband’s permission to open a bank account or for other juridical activities

– She must ask his permission to take a job or travel (even though the Labor Code is more liberal than this).

3 POWERFUL FACTORS

DIMENSIONS OF POWER

• Dichotomized, zero-sum notion of power• One person’s gain constitutes the loss of other

person• No culture of “win-win”

THE CULTURE OF SOCIAL

EXCHANGE & FAVORS

• Favors are given with expectations of return. • Politics is often based on buying influence• This makes it especially difficult for women,

who generally lack access to resources

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND

WITCHCRAFT

Relative positions and gender roles are justified with reference to religion

Many religious organizations rigidly support a customary interpretation of men’s and women’s roles (except Kimbanguist)

Witchcraft used to interpret any anomalies

FACTUAL BELIEFS

In family life

A man who performs home chores “is no longer a man”, and he is “dominated by his wife”Because men have given a dowry, their wife is their propertyA man beating his wife has not lost interest in her and had not found another womanWife can cause her husband death through sorceryA man performing household chores can bring the “bad spirits” to the house.

In public life

A woman generally has but one favour to give – her body. A Lingala saying: “A man is his purse, a woman is her body.”

One of the former presidents was known to have sex with all women who were in politics

EMPIRICAL EXPECTATIONS

In family life

A good wife will not speak first or louder than her husband and will not take decisions without asking the husband. 76 % of women aged 15 to 49 say that a man is justified in beating his wife partner under certain circumstances. A “strong” and respectful man will not help with house chores and child rising.

The man is the one who provides for his family, and a good respectful man is generous to his extended family. A woman does not need to share the responsibility for providing for the family.

In public life

A respectable wife will not make a bigger political carrier, or will not be higher on professional hierarchy than her husband, as this will be considered his personal failure.

Women in leadership positions are often not married or were divorced by their husbands.

It is more important for a boy to have education, as he needs to find a job to provide for his family. Girls’ education is less important, though it might help get a better dowry.Girls who performed well in school receive marks in exchange for sex.

Majority believes and has seen that people conform to gender roles in everyday life. They are told that respectable people conform to gender roles.

NORMATIVE EXPECTATIONS

Intensely engaged social environment.

Surveillance and sanctioning practices to ensure compliance to “properly” masculine or feminine behavior.

Majority thinks that:• Extended family and community expects them to have a traditional

family, in which man will provide for the family, and women will obey. • They will be ostracized if they behave differently, do things that are not

consider “proper” for their gender. • Women think that husbands and family expects them to have as many

children as possible and they fear their husband will take a new wife if they stop getting pregnant.

• Others think the women should not make a successful leader carrier, as it will bring shame to the man.

• Men think that if their wives will get leadership roles, people will think that they got this position as favor.

• Often young girls cannot fully enjoy excellent results in the university, as people think that they did not get them in a honest way.

GENERAL SCHEMA

Ideals of masculinity and femininity are based on clear man dominance. • The birth of a son is celebrated, while a baby girl is not seen as

positively. • A poor man will usually prioritize education for his sons and mother

may save or hide money in order to send her daughters to school. • Women let men take decisions, but they do all domestic chores. • Men provide materially for his family, and are generous to the extended

family. • Men could be violent with his wife if he is not satisfied with her. • In many cases, man demonstrates sexual prowess by having

relationships with more than one woman. • In the case of the death of the husband, often his siblings will retrieve

all property in the house occupied by his widow. • Girls more often than boys drop out of school to help with agricultural

and domestic chores.• In public and professional life, women defer to men, asking them or

letting them to respond first to questions. Women do not seek for or go into leadership positions or take public roles.

NORMS ARE RELAXING SLOWLY

Change is evident among youth and residents of urban areas, with the girls’ access to education being the most important catalyst for change.

• More than before, young people:– Prefer to choose their own marriage partners. – Aspire to smaller families.– Wish to name their children themselves. – Abandon traditional pattern of preference for marriage with

cousins.

• Nowadays an educated girl can bring a bigger dowry to the family.

• There are more women professionals, but still very modest

number of women leaders.

REWRITING THE SCHEMA AND SCRIPTS FOR GENDER ROLES

These new elements of the schema have to engage everybody – men and women, and without blaming anyone, or blaming the tradition and culture - towards a better future for all.

Advance a SUPERORDINATE GOAL, which will help men and women or the whole family to team together

• Using all the available family resources – men and women, boys and girls - at their maximum potential , would be an attempt to shift the dichotomized power pattern outside the man-women relationship.

• This could break down barriers, encourage men and women to see each other increasingly as members of the same team, and thus overcome gender role differences.

The new schema will build on the changes that are already occurring in small groups of Congolese people (urban, educated, emigrants, etc) but are not spread and diffused, thus not gaining

territory or gaining it extremely slow.

THE ELEMENTS OF THE NEW SCHEMA

• Both man and women can be successful in the modern Congolese society (“revolution of modernity” is a concept promoted by the current president), in which a new family emerges.

• In order to prosper together, husband and wife can both have high education, highly paid jobs and leadership roles and share the responsibility for providing for the family. This way it is easier to resist through the difficult times of economic crisis and provide for the children.

• Strong successful men team together with strong successful wives; • A prosperous family is the one that they give education to all their

children - boys and girls. • Girls can do well in school and university and can have better paid jobs.

Thus, they will have more chances to marry to well-educated boys. And the welfare of the family, in which all members have better paid jobs, will increase.

• Our daughters are educated, smart and successful because we are a modern family. They can make carriers, be leaders and take high level job, because they are modern. Whoever wants to marry them has to accept them being successful.

SOME LESSONS FROM THE PREVIOUS INTERVENTIONS

• Predominant focus on rape, especially in the conflict areas in eastern provinces;

• Often based on a poor understanding of the gender-related cultural and social patterns;

• Involve almost exclusively participation of women;

• Failed to understand the importance for men to provide for their families;

• In the majority of cases they are offering immediate assistance, and thus does not respond to root causes of the problem, are not addressing long-term changes in norms and behaviors, or the reduction of economic vulnerability;

• Are completed in short periods of time, based on the duration of funding and have limited long-term effects.

THE MAIN PRINCIPLES OF THE PROPOSED ACTION

• Focus on both men and women.

• Planed as a long term intervention.

• Address the root causes of the problem, the empirical and normative expectations and factual beliefs.

• Directly address young people: “Intergenerational transmission of the possibility of change”.

• Interaction rural –urban as an amplifying factor for the promotion of new role-models.

• Interventions supported by community discussions and value deliberations.

• Both state institutions and civil society actively involved from the conceptualization and planning stage.

• Act towards the harmonization of the legal, moral and social norms.

OPPORTUNIUTY FOR ACTION

• A 3-year multi-purpose, multi-level action.

• Developed by UNICEF, Ministry of Gender and Family, FAO and GIZ.

• 2 western provinces of DRC (Kinshasa and Bandundu) .

– Life skills education – formal and non-formal.– Communication for social change.– Harmonization of the legal norms. – Contribution to better distribution of the economic

power.– Creation of social protection networks. – Building the capacity of the judicial and law

enforcement systems.

POWER WITH, POWER WITHIN and POWER TO

COMMUNICAITON (1)

MASS COMMUNICATION

– Video and audio testimonies, reports, images and interviews that will provide counter-stereotypical images.• Families in which both man and women are in high level positions

or are successful• Modern fathers and husbands. • Educated women who have happy families and have healthier and

better developed children.• Successful young people, especially professionally successful

young women

– Theatrical video sketches modeling the elements of the new schema and scripts, with the participation of famous actors

– Public debates and value deliberations on TV and Radio

– U-report (SMS platform) to permanently survey the changes in empirical and normative expectations and to create a new reference group for young people.

COMMUNICAITON (2)

EDUTAINMENT, COMMUNITY AND TRADITIONAL MEDIA

- Radio soap opera. Based on entertainment-education Sabido methodology.

– 156 episodes (twice a week, during 1.5 years initially, in 3 languages (Lingala, Swahili, and French), with national radio coverage and an additional broadcasting by a combination of 100 community radio stations.

- Listeners groups (revitalization or creation of new listeners groups).

- Social theatre. Support to local theatre groups to integrate gender issues and organize performances in communities.

- Participatory video and mobile cinema.

- Community radio programs, interactive and based on local realities, with call-in question and answer component.

COMMUNICAITON (3)

INTER-PERSONAL COMMUNICATION

• Conducted by community mobilisers (workers) in the community, markets , based on visuals (drawings, images) .

• Conducted by faith-based organizations in the churches and mosques and by the women and youth groups affiliated to the churches (in the weekly meetings).

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATORY PROGRAMMING PROCESS:• Community discussions.• Participatory auto evaluations to reveal local resources for change.• Local participatory planning of small feasible actions for prevention

of GBV and support to girls education .• Participatory monitoring and revisiting the plans.• Organized diffusion of best experiences via inter-community

exchange forums.