Browse by Theme: Engaging Men & Boys

Two weeks on from the summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict and the dust is starting to settle. The positives outweigh the negatives so what next for the issue of gender-based violence and conflict, and what next for CARE?

CARE’s discussion event at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict explored how the trauma of conflict permeates society long after conflict ends, made recommendations about the role of education in challenging attitudes and behaviours, and identified some of the challenges for scaling up this work to achieve long-term change.

CARE called on the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict to tackle the root causes by supporting and scaling up innovative programmes to engage men and boys on gender equality and gender-based violence prevention. At a CARE panel event at the Summit, Edouard Munyamaliza described how CARE partner organisation RWAMREC has been doing this in Rwanda since 2006. So what has RWAMREC achieved, and what can we learn from it?

CARE’s discussion event at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict asked panellists to share their experience on what works in engaging men and boys – and what are their practical recommendations for scaling up this work and finding tangible global solutions to the problem of sexual and gender-based violence.

CARE International is calling for increased attention to engaging men and boys on gender-based violence at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. This is not an uncontroversial stance. Some say it risks distracting from, or worse undermining, efforts to tackle violence against women and girls. Others fear that projects to engage men and boys inevitably get dominated by them.

Over recent years, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been a kind of laboratory for different initiatives to tackle impunity for war rape. Last year, the UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and Angelina Jolie visited the DRC and CARE’s projects for survivors of sexual violence in North Kivu province. What are the key lessons that CARE’s Country Director in the DRC, Yawo Douvon, hopes they will take to the Global Summit on ending sexual violence?

Violence against women and girls is one of the worst global epidemics. Studies show that gender-based violence (GBV) accounts for as much death and ill-health in women aged 15-44 years as cancer does. It is a greater cause of ill-health than malaria and traffic accidents combined. One in three women will be raped, beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. The shocking truth is that violence against women and girls takes place in all countries, in homes, workplaces, schools and communities.