Gender based violence (GBV) is a grave public health concern with both short and long term consequences on both the individual and ecosystem. Globally, one in three women will face different forms of violence in her lifetime. Men who have sex with men and transgender persons are at a higher risk of facing violence. GBV limits the autonomy of women and sexual minorities to make decisions about their health.
We care about the violence faced by the communities that we work with and the resulting barriers to achieving wellbeing.
We developed a comprehensive city level ecosystem response to address GBV, particularly violence against women, girls, and marginalised communities, in collaboration with UNDP. Our work with Swathi Mahila Sangha created a structured response system called Swathi Nyaya Sanjeevini, which offers round the clock response to women in sex work experiencing violence. Over 7,000+ incidents have been responded to since 2005. We evaluated the Ujjawala scheme, addressing trafficking and violence issues in all districts of Karnataka, supported by UNICEF, with an aim to enhance the programme. Using a life skills approach, we have built the capacities of 19,000+ women and men on prevention of violence to promote gender equality.
Our innovations have focused on prevention and mitigation of GBV.
Our community level interventions led us to develop an innovative reporting module on a mobile application that not only captures information about an incident that has occurred but also generates a severity index. This allows for tracking of escalating experience, and focus on prevention and mitigation of violence. A safety planning module developed alongside for women in sex work can be customised for other contexts. The DOT tool developed for use in factories, where the workforce may not be literate, utilises a survey using dots to capture responses about the work environment. The colours of the dots indicate the level of action required to prevent GBV.
Our work has transformed how organisations prevent and respond to violence.
Our work with community organisations in five States has led to a 30% decrease in violence reported by individuals and 2.63 times, from 18% in 2015 to 69% in 2017, increase in reporting of incidents.
We believe that it is important to break the pervasive cycle of violence to support survivors realise their freedoms, rights, and access to services. Write to us to partner in these efforts, [email protected].
