Sunday Times 2
‘Voices Against Violence’: Education curriculum for 800,000 women
Gender-based violence is a dark reality in Sri Lanka Making a timely move, the largest organisation of women and girls started work on freeing the country from its grip. Launching a non-formal education curriculum called ‘Voices Against Violence’, the Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association conducted their inaugural training sessions for potential trainers from September 11-14.
This curriculum for Voices against Violence is the collaborative efforts of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS,) and UN Women under their campaign- Stop The Violence (STV). Hoping to reach 800,000 women with their pro-active education by 2016, the syllabus for Sri Lanka has been translated into Sinhalese and Tamil for better appreciation in all regions.
Sri Lanka’s efforts in this area date back to the 1980s, Deputy Chief Girl Guide Commissioner Visakha Tillekeratne said. The vision of our former chief commissioners has made it possible for the local chapter, in their capacity to take proactive measure to battle this breed of violence, and mourn the scars it left behind. We had a candle-light vigil for Vidya, she said, recalling the aftermath of the Jaffna’s horror story. “But there are many Vidyas” which validated the presence of a programme of this nature.
There is also little sense in leaving men out, according to the Deputy Chief Commissioner. Gender, she says is an all-encompassing term, including the marginalised communities such as transgender and sex workers. Much of the work initiated already includes abused men.
Showing his solidarity with the cause, Deputy Speaker Thilanga Sumathipala was also present at the event. Encouraged that men are included in the STV efforts, he pledged legal support in his official capacity, including observer status when relevant issues are discussed in parliament. “Studies have increasingly shown that abused boys carry traces of their dark past throughout adult life, as much as women,” he said.
Child Protection Officer for UNICEF, Caroline Backer divulged the dismal fact uncovered by country-specific research. “In Sri Lanka, people thing abuse happens outside, not within their environments – however 96% of child abuse cases from the country show offenders are from within the child’s trusted circle.”
Representing the state authority for Women’s and Child Development, Urani Wickramasinghe felt that the Government’s initiatives such as the two hot-lines to report abuse can’t tackle the magnitude of the current issues at hand. Even state education, she feels is at times insufficient, making civil participation the only practical way to address the issue.
Trainers from guiding companies from around the island, were equipped with skills to detect, prevent and educate those under their care. “We like to think we are experts in non -formal education,” Shalika Abegunasekera of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts says, since the Guiding community has relied on this model for nearly a century. Representing the largest organisation dedicated to women, reaching about 10 million females, she said that while programmes for specific forms of violence such as female genital mutilation exist, the broader picture was neglected. The product of this education according to Shalika, is not merely preventive and remedial measures against violence but “girls equipped with knowledge of their rights and the confidence to claim them.”