Campaigns to End Violence against Women and Girls - Virtual ...

Raising Voices has developed a detailed curriculum in simple language which guides
campaign activists through every step of running a community campaign to end violence
against women and girls. The core idea is to build critical mass for change across the
community (Michau, 2007. Approaching old problems in new ways):
See the full Raising Voices Community Mobilization case study.
A full set of booklets providing practical guidance on all steps of the Raising Voices
campaign, starting from community assessment, can be downloaded at no cost from the
website.
Example: In the High Plateaux of Minembwe (South Kivu, D.R.Congo), forced marriage
of girls under 18 was extremely common. In most villages, the crime locally known as
“mariage par rapt” (French for “marriage by abduction”) used to occur every few weeks.
Young girls would be kidnapped and gang-raped by groups of local young men, and
forced to marry one of the perpetrators. The local development NGO UGEAFI exposed
the practice through formative research involving survivors, perpetrators and a range of
other stakeholders including parents and priests, who often conspired, “legalizing”
under-age marriage with traditional rites.
In focus group discussions and public meetings, UGEAFI stimulated open discussions
on the beliefs and motivations for “marriage by abduction”, and its harmful effects on
individuals and the community as a whole. UGEAFI distributed and explained relevant
family law and criminal code texts to local administrators and priests, many of whom had
been unaware of existing legislation. In parallel, UGEAFI also ran a programme to
facilitate girls’ school attendance which included the introduction of fuel-saving stoves
and mechanic manioc and maize mills, so as to reduce household chores that used to
keep girls out of school. In cooperation with a secondary school, UGEAFI introduced
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Campaigns December 2011