WUNRN
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS! GENDER &
DEVELOPMENT – VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN & GIRLS
The July 2016 issue of Gender & Development
will address Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).
G&D is the world’s only international journal of gender and development,
published by Oxfam and Routledge/Taylor and Francis - www.tandfonline.com/gad. Free online access to content is also available, at www.genderanddevelopment.org. G&D publishes accessible yet rigorous content which
reflects on the challenges of integrating gender equality and women’s rights
into development and humanitarian work. As such, it is essential reading for
international development researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. It is
currently read in over 90 countries.
VAWG is a gross violation
of human rights, and the most widespread form of abuse worldwide. One in
three women worldwide will experience physical or sexual violence in her
lifetime. VAWG is found in homes, streets and workplaces; it is the most
extreme form of enforcing complex inequalities of gender, race and class, and a
daily reality for countless millions. In conflict, post-conflict and fragile
states, VAWG is used as a weapon of war.
Addressing VAWG is a
central development goal in its own right, and key to achieving other
development outcomes for individual women and girls, their families,
communities and nations. For decades, women and women’s movements have resisted
VAWG covertly and overtly, supported survivors, raised public awareness, and
gained hard-won commitments from governments and international bodies to
address VAWG. Change is needed at all levels of society, from government,
the police and judiciary, to workplaces, marketplaces, schools, and the home.
Laws and policies create a framework for societies where women and girls are safe,
but a range of barriers slow implementation and therefore hamper women’s and
girls’ access to the active and effective community-level prevention and
response mechanisms they need.
How can development and
humanitarian workers ensure they play their part to end VAWG? In this G&D
issue, we share grounded case studies of real experience from developing
countries of the many different approaches to addressing and preventing VAWG
that are being trialled by development and humanitarian organisations. Some are
developing programmes aiming explicitly to end violence against women by using
a range of strategies developed in response to particular contexts, such as
targeting particular social norms or addressing VAWG in conflict settings.
Feminist men’s organisations are working at community level to break the cycle
of violence by de-linking masculinity from violence, conflict and domination.
Mainstream anti-poverty development strategies are developing components on
VAWG, and monitor the impact of programming on VAWG, to ensure that women’s
economic empowerment does not result in violent backlash.
We envisage articles on the following areas – but
please suggest others to us!
·
Monitoring, evaluation
and learning about VAWG interventions: building knowledge of what works –
examples of MEL in different contexts
·
Mainstreaming VAWG
prevention and mitigation into development and humanitarian activities to
ensure they ‘do no harm’ and lessen the danger of backlash
·
Providing support to
survivors, especially through holistic, integrated, and cross-sectoral
approaches
·
Working to challenge
attitudes, norms, and beliefs: with men and boys, with adolescent girls, in
schools, alongside women’s economic empowerment projects
·
Working on VAWG in
different contexts: rural and urban; in fragile states; with activists in
women’s movements; through or within ethnic or religious communities; or with
women facing various levels of poverty and insecurity
·
Advocacy, lobbying or
campaigning to get VAWG laws and policies in place, and to improve
implementation of existing ones
·
Addressing and preventing
VAWG through new or emerging strategies, such as ICT4D and social media,
popular culture, and the arts.
G&D has an
editorial policy of publishing in clear, jargon-free English, in order to be of
use to the widest possible readership. All articles need to be based on
first-hand experience, or research on-the-ground in particular country
contexts, and have direct relevance to development policy and practice. Don’t
worry if you have not written for a journal – we will help you with style and
language!
Please send a paragraph
outlining your proposed idea for an article for this issue to csweetman@oxfam.org.uk
as soon as possible, and before the commissioning deadline: 15 October
2015. Commissioned articles will need to be completed for a deadline of 15
January 2015.
For full guidelines and more information on the journal visit www.genderanddevelopment.org