From Lilongwe to London: Marking the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence

From Lilongwe to London: Marking the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence

Every year, GBV practitioners, academics and activists come together to mark the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, launching campaigns, hosting events, and running workshops. This year has been no different and the What Works Programme had a busy first week of the 2024 16 Days of Activism announcing three of our newest grantee partners: Soul City Institute, Centre for Rights Education and Awareness, and Reach Digital Health, and supporting two events: one in Lilongwe, Malawi and one in London, England.  

Lilongwe  

The event in Malawi which I was honored to attend was the launch of What Works’ largest scale grant so far, led by the Pamodzi Kutenzsa (PKN) Consortium. Funded by the UK Government through the What Works II Programme, the PKN Consortium brings together three indigenous local women led women rights organisations: the Women’s Legal Resource Centre (WOLREC), the Girls Empowerment Network (GENET), and Women and Girls with Disability (WAG).  The four-and-a-half-year programme aims to achieve the realization of women’s rights in Malawi through reducing physical, sexual, economic and psychological violence through the implementation and evaluation of a combination of interventions: ‘SASA! Together’, a whole community approach to VAWG prevention; ‘Moyo Omelekezeka’, an economic empowerment component for families/household; a Survivor Support Fund; and a gender transformative curriculum to address the root causes of gender inequality.   

The event was kindly hosted by the UK High Commissioner for Malawi, Fiona Ritchie, with the Malawi Minister for Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, the Hon Jean Sendeza MP, as the event’s Guest of Honour.   

In her remarks the Minister applauded the design of the PKN project, particularly its comprehensive approach of implementing interventions across a continuum of a prevention and response frameworks and addressing violence prevention with young people, as well as the project’s inclusivity of women with disability as well as families in shifting the social norms that perpetuate VAWG: 

“Concerted efforts are needed to implement these laws and that is why we need collaboration from various sectors be it government, CSO’s private sector and development partners and that is why we welcome this PKN initiative." 

The Minister also reaffirmed the Malawian Government’s commitment to partnerships like the one with PKN that will buttress government efforts to end VAWG. She laid out the efforts of the government in combating GBV and laid out several policy and legislative frameworks that the government has enacted in the fight against GBV, including:  

• The Constitution: The Constitution of Malawi guarantees women the right to equal protection under the law and prohibits discrimination based on gender or marital status. It also protects the rights to liberty, privacy, human dignity, and personal freedom.  

• The Sexual Offences Act (2016): This act increases penalties for offenders and improves support for victims of sexual violence.  

• The National Gender Policy: This policy aims to mainstream gender into the national development process to promote gender equality and women empowerment.  

• The National Action Plan to Combat Gender Based Violence in Malawi (2014-2020): This plan was created by the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare.  

• The Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Act: This act reinforces the 2017 Constitutional Amendment that outlawed marriage under the age of 18 

The Minister further acknowledged that Malawi is also a party to several international and regional instruments on gender equality and women empowerment, including the 1979 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).  

The High Commissioner told the gathering that the UK Government has a bold domestic ambition of halving VAWG within 10 years and this domestic commitment is matched by significant international investments such as the What Works II Programme – a 67.5 million pound global effort to systematically scale up violence prevention efforts globally. 

The Executive Director of WOLREC, Maggie Banda, outlined the impacts that the project aims to achieve by reaching over 750,000 people in the districts of Balaka and Lilongwe, thereby contributing to the realization of women’s rights in Malawi in line with the ambitions of the Government.  

London 

Meanwhile in London my colleagues in the UK helped organise an evening reception asking “What will it take to halve VAWG in a decade?”. The event, hosted by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the UK Home Office, brought together survivors, activists and experts working on ending violence in the UK and globally.  
It included remarks from the UK Special Envoy on Gender Equality, Alicia Herbert, as well as from two UK Government Ministers: the Minister for Development and Women and Equalities, the Rt Hon Anneliese Dodds MP, and the Minister for Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips MP.    

 My colleagues tell me both Ministers gave impassioned speeches, with Minister Dodds citing the strong evidence generated by Phase 1 of What Works, celebrating new and innovative What Works partnerships, and committing to scaling up UK investment in local solutions to prevent violence. Meanwhile, Minister Phillips paid tribute to the work the Foreign Office has done in centering prevention in their work and committed to strengthening cross Government relationships and priorities to ensure global evidence helps drive domestic progress on the effective prevention of VAWG.