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Gender Based Violence
DEFINITION: Any harmful act perpetrated against a person based on socially ascribed/gender differences between males and females. It includes acts of causing physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering, or threats of such acts, and other deprivations of liberty
(UNICEF)
Gender Based Violence (GBV) is in turn described as one of the most pervasive of the human rights violations, which kills, maims, and tortures many women every day, all over the world.
It is important to retain the 'gender-based' aspect of the GBV concept as this highlights the fact that violence against women is an expression of power inequalities between women and men.
Throughout the history and everywhere in the world, women have been relegated to the domestic/private sphere and have been denied the right to participate to the public/politic life. Gender Based Violence (GBV) are in turn used as a common tool of social control in patriarchal societies all over the world to maintain women in a dependent position vis-à-vis men.
Difficulty in ending GBV
A deep patriarchal system has normalized violence against women globally
The collective unwillingness as a community, and as a society to regard it as more than just ‘a family problem’
Culture could also be used as a way to maintain patriarchal system and norms. Indeed, some people in Uganda (and in other countries), argue that equality between men and women spoils the ‘true culture’ and the traditional values.