Reducing Gender-Based Violence in Public Transportation

2015 ◽  
Vol 2531 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aldo Tudela Rivadeneyra ◽  
Abel Lopez Dodero ◽  
Shomik Raj Mehndiratta ◽  
Bianca Bianchi Alves ◽  
Elizabeth Deakin

Gender-based violence on public transportation in Mexico City, Mexico, is a growing concern. Current efforts to counteract the violence have focused on transit vehicles for exclusive use by women and children and campaigns to promote the report of offenses. To characterize the problem, this study conducted a transit user survey, workshops with transit users, interviews with operators, and interviews with experts in the field. The study found that, even though transit users believed that the gender-exclusive transport service reduced problematic encounters, they did not view the service as a solution to the problem of gender-based violence. Transit users would prefer to see the problem addressed through a combination of interventions including social marketing, mobile phone reporting systems, and transit service upgrades. Government agencies acknowledged that gender segregation and current reporting systems were only partially successful, and nongovernmental organizations and private operators agreed. Those agencies added that they were ready to contribute to the effort to find solutions to the problem. Study recommendations included (a) a communication campaign to foster better social behavior by passengers; (b) the use of technology, such as cell phone applications, to enable users to report offenses; and (c) the further investigation of the potential for new technology-based niche transportation services to address particular markets that were unsafe.

Author(s):  
Mutambuli J. Hadji

This article aims to evaluate government's communication strategy and citizens' awareness of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children campaign in Soshanguve, South Africa. The study applied the diffusion of innovation theory because of its ability to assess how communities receive communication about the campaign from various media. Survey method was used to collect data, which was analysed using descriptive statistics. It was found out that mass media and other communication channels were main sources of campaign messages, which help the community to know how to address gender-based violence issues. Notably, this study found that females were more likely to know about the campaign than males. This article recommends that this campaign should be visible throughout the year and there should be more campaigns targeting men, and school curriculum, which educate pupils about the social and economic consequences of GBV.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (7) ◽  
pp. 862-881 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mieko Yoshihama ◽  
Tomoko Yunomae ◽  
Azumi Tsuge ◽  
Keiko Ikeda ◽  
Reiko Masai

This study reports on 82 unduplicated cases of violence against women and children after the Great East Japan Disaster of March 2011. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire from informants who worked with the disaster-affected populations. In addition to domestic violence, reported cases involved sexual assault and unwanted sexual contact, including quid pro quo assault perpetrated by nonintimates. Perpetrators often exploited a sense of fear, helplessness, and powerlessness and used threats to force compliance with sexual demands in exchange for life-sustaining resources. Findings point to the urgent need to develop measures to prevent and respond to postdisaster gender-based violence.


Author(s):  
Gema Fernández Rodríguez de Liévana ◽  
Christine Chinkin

The chapter discusses the tension that exists between three separate UN agendas, those relating to CEDAW and WPS; the fight against trafficking in human beings; and the Security Council’s broader agenda for the maintenance of international peace and security. It considers in particular how the securitisation of WPS and human trafficking by the Security Council has diluted and fragmented the discourse of women’s human rights. It argues that as a form of gender-based violence, human trafficking is subject to the human rights regime that has evolved to combat such violence and that human rights mechanisms should be engaged to hold States responsible for their failure to exercise due diligence to prevent, protect against and prosecute those responsible – in the widest sense – for human trafficking. The incidence of human trafficking (as a form of gender-based violence) in armed conflict means that it comes naturally under the auspices of the WPS agenda. The Security Council’s silence in this regard constitutes of itself a form of violence that weakens the potential of the WPS agenda to bring structural transformation in post-conflict contexts. In agreement with the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children and cognisant of some of the downsides, we argue that ‘in order to ensure more efficient anti-trafficking responses, a human rights-based approach … should be mainstreamed into all pillars of the women and peace and security agenda’. In turn this would provide a new direction for the WPS agenda.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-139
Author(s):  
Md. Abu Shahen

This study tried to explore the current nature of gender-based violence and harassment in Bangladesh. Specifically, gender-related harassment and discrimination with violence against women and children have been explored throughout the study. However, the study is based on secondary data collected from gender-focused scholars and organizations. The data of ASK and BSAF have been used for critical analysis regarding violence, harassment, and discrimination against women and children in Bangladesh. As findings, the study found that the prevalence of domestic violence and oppression against wife and housemate including cleaner, housekeeping, and cooker have existed in the forms of torture, negligence, rape, forced rape, physical assault, and sexual assault. The study also found that women and girls are being harassed in transportation as they feel unsecured in movement through abusive and negative attitudes and behavior such as touching, closely standing, intentionally pushing, and gripping in shoulders, bad beckon and comment, and touching in the sensitive part of the body. It is also seen that the business environment is not favorable for women Entrepreneurs due to constraints social and cultural attitudes, lack of political commitment, and insufficient governmental provisions for establishing a women-friendly business environment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-93
Author(s):  
Rafia Naz Ali ◽  
Johar Wajahat ◽  
Muhammad Jan

The 3 P's, i.e., the security, promotion, and provision of fundamental rights to its people, are widely regarded as the hallmarks of an effective legal system. These 3Ps are enforced in both formal and informal legal structures. Gender-based violence (GBV) at work is the most well-known form of GBV in our culture, which is marked by patriarchy and gender segregation. When harassment occurs in the workplace, it makes a female's working experience unpleasant, harmful, and aggressive. It makes it difficult for her to obtain a legitimate position and respect in the workplace. According to a survey, 77 percent of Pakistani women employed in different occupations are unaware of their human rights in cases of sexual abuse. According to the National Commission on the Status of Women, 50 percent of women interviewed from the public and private sectors had been sexually harassed and were hesitant to report the truth. The Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act of 2010 was enacted in Pakistan's history to protect women from mischief and ensure a safe workplace. It manifested constitutional protections enlisted under Fundamental rights. Non-traditional job structures, such as farm work, domestic and home-based work, are part of Pakistan's socio-economic culture. Even on non-traditional job bases, the Act of 2010 made it possible to directly contact the Office of Ombudsperson or file a criminal complaint. This article aims to examine the current state and efficacy of workplace discrimination legislation.


Author(s):  
Carol Bower

Despite South Africa having ratified several international and regional women’s and children’s rights treaties, and having one of the most admired constitutions in the world, the plight of women and children after 20 years of democracy remains, in many respects, dire—especially in rural communities. South Africa is a deeply conservative and patriarchal society, with high levels of violence in general and gender-based violence in particular. It has failed to create sufficient employment opportunities and to sustainably address intergenerational poverty, the latter of which impacts most severely rural women and children. HIV/AIDS has wreaked its most adverse effects on women and children. This context is exacerbated by breakdowns in the health, education, justice, and security sectors; the relative inaccessibility of services (such as health care, schooling, and housing); and the frequently poor quality of services when they are available.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Abdul Hadi

Sexual harassment in workplace is a reflection of unequal power relationship among genders and should not be seen as isolated cases emanating from psychological or criminal roots. The practice of sexual harassment in the workplace occurs in occupations and industries which turns working environment for women into stressful, damaging, and hostile and make it difficult for them to achieve their rightful place in employment. Sexual harassment in the workplace is the most frequent form of gender-based violence occurring in Pakistani society characterized by patriarchy and gender segregation. When women attempt to join workforce and take economic responsibilities of family in opposite to predominating social norms, they have to suffer from sexual harassment. This speaks not just to the structure of the work place, but the entrenched culture of female objectification, which quite often paints women as mere recipients for male desire – views that are reproduced and perpetuated in a work place. This study is an endeavor to spot the causes of sexual harassment in the workplace in Pakistan; and what are the underlying factors which lead to under-reporting of the incidences of sexual harassment in the workplace. This study asserts that the patriarchal values prevailing in Pakistani society breed sexual harassment in the workplace also preclude victims to report the incidence by not giving them appropriate moral, cultural and legal support. This study argues that in an environment like Pakistan where rule of law is not prevalent in entire society so just having policies and awareness regarding these policies could not be a valid and significant element for lowering the sexual harassment experience in the workplace. Sexual Harassment in the workplace reflects the unequal power relationships between genders in patriarchy society of Pakistan and cannot be combated until patriarchal mindsets are changed which can be achieved only by transforming the existing patriarchal society itself that is producing such mindsets.


Author(s):  
Abdul Hadi

Patriarchal values are embedded in Pakistani society which determines the subordinated position of women. Patriarchal control over women is exercised through institutionalized restrictive codes of behavior, gender segregation and the ideology which associates family honor to female virtue. The abnormal, amoral, and harmful customary practices which aim at preserving subjugation of women, defended and sanctified as cultural traditions and given religious overtones. Abnormal and amoral traditional practices in Pakistan include honor killing, rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment, acid attacks, being burned, kidnapping, domestic violence, dowry murder, and forces marriages, custodial abuse and torture. According to a 2011 poll of experts by the Thomson Reuters Foundation Poll, Pakistan is ranked the 3rd the most dangerous country for women in the world. This paper aims to highlight the sufferings of women in Pakistan and consider that in patriarchal societies violence has been used as a social mechanism to perpetuate the subjugation of women. Patriarchal system necessitates the violence for the sake of its existence. With the help of existing data, the gender-based violence in Pakistan has been analyzed. This paper concludes that all forms of gender-based violence are committed to ensure the compliance of women. In order to eliminate violence against women, patriarchal system has to be changed which can be achieved by strengthening the social, political and economic position of women.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-93
Author(s):  
Rafia Naz Ali ◽  
Johar Wajahat ◽  
Mohammad Jan

The 3 P's, i.e., the security, promotion, and provision of fundamental rights to its people, are widely regarded as the hallmarks of an effective legal system. These 3Ps are enforced in both formal and informal legal structures. Gender-based violence (GBV) at work is the most well-known form of GBV in our culture, which is marked by patriarchy and gender segregation. When harassment occurs in the workplace, it makes a female's working experience unpleasant, harmful, and aggressive. It makes it difficult for her to obtain a legitimate position and respect in the workplace. According to a survey, 77 percent of Pakistani women employed in different occupations are unaware of their human rights in cases of sexual abuse. According to the National Commission on the Status of Women, 50 percent of women interviewed from the public and private sectors had been sexually harassed and were hesitant to report the truth. The Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act of 2010 was enacted in Pakistan's history to protect women from mischief and ensure a safe workplace. It manifested constitutional protections enlisted under Fundamental rights. Non-traditional job structures, such as farm work, domestic and home-based work, are part of Pakistan's socio-economic culture. Even on non-traditional job bases, the Act of 2010 made it possible to directly contact the Office of Ombudsperson or file a criminal complaint. This article aims to examine the current state and efficacy of workplace discrimination legislation.


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