Let me share a different experience I had a few years back when I was serving in Dakar as the regional programme director. We did train magistrates and police officers on gender based violence and we purposely avoided doing it in a special workshop setting. We negotiated with the school of magistrates and the police academy a space to introduce a module on gender based violence in the formal curriculum. It meant working with the official trainers of these schools, it meant bringing human rights activists in the lawyers association, men as well as women, it meant media coverage and discussions in mainstream newspapers with papers commissioned to break the silence, it also meant buying the space for women's rights groups working in shelters to make a presentation during the training (towards the end).
It was a truly rewarding experience because when I left a few years later, this module was integrated in the formal training curriculum and questions on this issue were added to the final test. Magistrates used the legal provision to sanction severely rape of minors and domestic violence which was not previously the case and police officers had linked up with the women's shelters when they were called in on cases of domestic violence because this was the kind of counselling service that they needed and could not provide. There are good examples but we need more and we need to share more. For those who have already heard of this experience, please bear with me but it is important that we build on success, and there is much more in Africa. Aster Zaoude Senior Gender Advisor UNDP/New York On 9 April 2002, Nkem Izuako wrote: > I am interested in your impressions about ignorant, uninformed, > all-knowing magistrates and judges who have never read anything on domestic > violence or VAW. I happen to be a judge in Nigeria and I understand > perfectly what you mean. I have not lost hope entirely though as I know > that more effort and will are needed to begin to educate our colleagues on > the bench away from their traditional perceptions of women's concerns. > ***End-violence is sponsored by UNIFEM and receives generous support from ICAP*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe end-violence OR type: unsubscribe end-violence Archives of previous End-violence messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/end-violence/hypermail/
