Education International Research
Box 7: African Education Unions Take Action to End School Related Gender Based Violence Teachers play a pivotal role in the fight against gender inequality, and they are key to ending gender based violence in schools. EI member organisations117 in East, West and Southern Africa are taking action to end school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) as part of a joint initiative between Education International (EI), the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) and Gender at Work (G@W) that is supported by the government of Canada. Since 2016, the initiative has sought to enable education unions in Africa to develop effective and sustainable approaches to addressing gender-based violence in the education system, within unions and in wider country contexts. Education unions in Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda, South Africa and Zambia are involved in the project. Union members participated in “gender action learning” processes, which used experiential, peer based learning techniques to enable organisations to challenge and change gender power dynamics, both internally and in their programmatic work. The unions then focused on advocacy, policy dialogue and knowledge-sharing activities to leverage their experience with a broad range of actors and stakeholders. Regional peer-learning workshops enabled knowledge sharing between unions across the countries as they planned and implemented action and activities to end SRGBV. The activities implemented by unions included: awareness-raising (both within the union and in the wider education community); training programmes on SRGBV for union members; and collaboration with external stakeholders. The initiative aims for these activities to be sustainable as unions integrate the SRGBV campaign into their core programmes. According to education unions involved in the project, the prevailing gender norms in Africa make it challenging to combat SRGBV. However, over the years that the project has been running, they have seen SRGBV become a more prioritised issue in the region. Unions’ efforts to train their members on gender sensitivity and their advocacy efforts to end SRGBV demonstrate that unions are key partners in ending SRGBV. Governments, unions, students, parents and communities must work together and all do their part to combat SRGBV.
SDG indicators related to SRGBV:
GRO.EI-IE
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Percentage of students experiencing bullying, corporal punishment, harassment, violence, sexual discrimination and abuse (Target 4.a)
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Prevalence of girls aged 15 or older who have experienced sexual violence by persons other than an intimate partner in the last 12 months, by age group and place of occurrence (Target 5.2)
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Percentage of children aged 1–17 who experienced any physical and/or psychological aggression by caregivers in the past month (Target 16.2)
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Percentage of young women and men aged 18–29 who experienced sexual violence by age 18 (target 16.2)
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Ethiopia Teachers’ Association (ETA); Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT); Uganda National Teachers’ Union (UNATU); National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (NAPTOSA); South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU); Basic Education Teachers’ Union of Zambia (BETUZ); Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT); The Gambia Teachers’ Union (GTU); and Sierra Leone Teachers’ Union (SLTU)