Three questions to an expert:

Within the framework of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence (25^th November to 10^th December), our online team asked Mr Ouedraogo to present the situation of the region in terms of types of violence, legal instruments, challenges and the regional office's support to country offices.

As a reminder, the Beijing Platform for Action-PFA defines Violence against Women (VAW) as “any gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.”

Violence against Women is part of Gender Based violence which refers to all forms of violence that happen to women, girls, men and boys because of the unequal power relations between them and the perpetrators of such violence.

West and Central Africa is a region prone to conflict and instability as well as natural disasters which often put women and girls in vulnerable positions.

What are the main types of violence against women in our region?

IO: The four main types of violence I will be citing below are not specific to our region:

a.Domestic violence : slap, punching, physical assault, sexual assault, intimidating gestures,

b.Physical violence: Physical abuse may include spitting, scratching, biting, grabbing, shaking, shoving, pushing, restraining, throwing, twisting, slapping (with open or closed hand), punching, choking, burning, and/or use of weapons.

c. Sexual violence. Including but not limited to: sexual slavery, sexual harassment (including demands for sex in exchange for job promotion or advancement or higher school marks or grades), trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, forced exposure to pornography, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, forced abortion, forced marriage,female genital mutilation (regional average 15.3%), virginity tests, incest, rape,coerced or forced use of contraceptives.

d. Psychological violence : Threats of violence and harm, emotional violence ( tactic of control that consists of a wide variety of verbal attacks and humiliations; In order for verbal abuse to be considered domestic violence, it must be part of a pattern of coercive behaviours in which the perpetrator uses or threatens to use physical force), isolation, use of children, economic violence

How many countries in the region have legal instruments to protect women against such violence?

IO: The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and/or its Additional Protocol on Women’s Rights and the Children’s Rights, are the instruments that many countries in West and Central Africa have ratified. The table below indicates the measures goverments have taken to protect the rights of women, and whether they signed the African Union Declaration or its Protocol.

In 2012, a research by UNFPA WCARO revealed that twenty governments in the region have taken measures in order to protect the fundamental rights of women in their respective countries based on 5 points: ratification and legislation, introduce equlity principle in policies and national laws, domesticating international texts, sending CEDAW reports and popularisation of women's rights.

- Benin, Burkina, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Sierra Leone and Togo have ratified such instruments and have appropriate legislations, equality principle and domesticated the texts. Also they often send CEDAW reports and have popularized laws on women’s rights.

-Chad, Cameroun, Congo and The Gambia have done all of the above except domesticating the text.

-Gabon did not ratify the instruments, legislate or domesticate the texts; Guinea Bissau has no equality principle and doesn’t send CEDAW reports while Senegal did not domesticate the texts neither popularize women's rights.

-Central African Republic has only ratified and legislated laws and has equality principle; Nigeria sends CEDAW reports and popularized women’s rights

It should be noted that data for the remaining three countries of the region were not available, namely Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, and Ghana.

Signature of the AU Declaration and African Protocol

	AU Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality	African Protocol on Women
	*Signature*	*Signature*
Benin	x	x
Burkina	x	x
Cameroon	2004	x
Cape Verde	2007	No
Central African Republic	No	No
Congo	2004	2007
Côte d’Ivoire	x	No
Gabon	x	?
Gambia	Review	Review
Guinea	2004	x
Guinea Bissau	?	?
Liberia	x	No
Mali	2004	x
Mauritania	2005	No
Niger	?	?
Nigeria	2004	x
Senegal	2002	x
Sierra Leone	2011	x
Chad	2004	No
Togo	x	No

Also, we are currently collecting data on the level of implementation of countries. However, it is obvious that challenges are still remaining, particularly because of lack or the insufficiency in the implementation of the legal framework.

The countries in the region need to identify strategies to push the implementation of the elimination of violence against women through awareness raising, advocacy, legal instruments etc.

How is the regional office assisting countries in the process of eliminating violence against women?

IO: Each country has a focal team at the regional office which provides the needed technical and programmatic support when never requested .

Concerning the issue of eliminating violence against women, the Regional Office is assisting countries by taking into consideration two situations:

For countries in crisis or post-crisis situation (Guinea Bissau, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Central African Republic, Liberia), the Regional Office, in collaboration with the Country Office, provided the support for all components of responses to such situation, i.e. training national counterparts for prevention, treatment, and care for the victims.

More generally for the other countries: the support takes into consideration the holistic approach of gender mainstreaming in the programmes and policies, as VAW is determined by the lack or insufficiency of that dimension in the programmes designing and implementation.

This means supporting the processes of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Documents, the United Nations Devlopment Assistance Framework ( UNDAF), the Country Programme Development-CPD and Country Programme Action Plan-CPAP so as to ensure that gender mainstreaming is achieved at all levels and steps.

A specific mention is to be made for fistula and FGM/C: The Regional office is supporting the countries to design, implement, monitor and evaluate programmes aiming at addressing that violence.

The programmes are on prevention, but also on treatments to repair when possible the damaged parts, and achieve social reintegration of the victims.

For the specific case of FGM/C, a joint programme with UNICEF is achieved in 7 countries of the region, and the Regional Office is providing technical support for result based management implementation.

[1] Ganley, Anne L. (1998); Improving the Health Care Response to Domestic Violence: A Resource Manual for Health Care Providers . WHO