Participatory Research on
Violence against Women and Legal Literacy
Gender violence began to emerge as an issue and a priority for action on an international scale during the 1975-1985 UN Decade for Women. Women's personal and social disempowerment also emerged as an issue and as a priority for action internationally following the Women’s Conference and NGO Forum in Nairobi.
Previously unrecognized as a problem globally, the staggering magnitude and varieties of violence directed against women worldwide started to be recognized by governments and international bodies alike in the years following the Nairobi forum. But the work of finding solutions and shaping strategies to combat gender violence was initiated and implemented primarily by nongovernmental, feminist, and sometimes grassroots, organizations. Through their commitment and creativity, they brought the reality of gender violence and women’s disempowerment to the light of day and crafted responses that confront the concrete ugliness of rape and battery and female infanticide and all of the other forms it takes. They searched for ways to confront the roots of gender violence and challenge the underlying values and structures of human society that permit women to be treated as targets of brutality.
"Empowering women to make the law relevant and real in their lives" was identified by the WLD forum as an imperative. So, together with the priority to end violence against women, rights awareness and legal literacy also emerged as important strategic concerns.
Responding to these priorities, WLD organized two projects as a search for solutions. Legal Literacy: A Tool for Women's Empowerment and Freedom from Violence: Women's Strategies from Around the World participatory research projects were about the search for strategies to empower women and to confront violence in the home, in the street and in the workplace.
Previously unrecognized as a problem globally, the staggering magnitude and varieties of violence directed against women worldwide started to be recognized by governments and international bodies alike in the years following the Nairobi forum. But the work of finding solutions and shaping strategies to combat gender violence was initiated and implemented primarily by nongovernmental, feminist, and sometimes grassroots, organizations. Through their commitment and creativity, they brought the reality of gender violence and women’s disempowerment to the light of day and crafted responses that confront the concrete ugliness of rape and battery and female infanticide and all of the other forms it takes. They searched for ways to confront the roots of gender violence and challenge the underlying values and structures of human society that permit women to be treated as targets of brutality.
"Empowering women to make the law relevant and real in their lives" was identified by the WLD forum as an imperative. So, together with the priority to end violence against women, rights awareness and legal literacy also emerged as important strategic concerns.
Responding to these priorities, WLD organized two projects as a search for solutions. Legal Literacy: A Tool for Women's Empowerment and Freedom from Violence: Women's Strategies from Around the World participatory research projects were about the search for strategies to empower women and to confront violence in the home, in the street and in the workplace.
