Annual Progress Report on 2014 Gender Cafe Project
by Gender and Development for Cambodia(GADC)
I. Introduction
In 2014, Gender Cafe project worked with four sector women
groups, namely entertainment workers (EW), victims of land eviction, garment
factory workers, domestic workers and with key members of Gender Cafe activists
in 2013. They are marginalized groups in both social and political participation
and whose rights to access to and control over resources have been violated.
The suffered from gender based violence either at household or workplace.
Having embraced with traditional customary code of conduct for women, these
groups have not shared their family affair to outsiders and were not aware that
their rights have been abused, particularly on marital rape based on baseline.
By comparing to their male counterparts, women have less chances and spaces to
express their innermost issues to public. GADC cooperated with partners who
have been working with women in relevant sectors to identify the target groups
to build their confidence and provide safe space for them to express women’s
concerns. This project was co-funded by Dorun Dorun and HBF. Within 2014, a
series of activities have been done: 5 project orientations were done with 77
participants, 20 Gender Cafe meetings in Phnom Penh, coaching sessions, radio
talk show and camping in Kep Province. At least each group met four times per
year and the topics for meetings are: gender and violence, gender and law,
gender and health, and gender and culture norms. All members found that Gender
Cafe meetings are very useful for them and women are happy to learn from each
other’s experiences.
II. Narrative Results
With the
activities described above, women’s concerns and violent cases have been
emerged and have been discussed for appropriate solutions. This brings about
changes with the following:
1.
There is a significant
increase the number of women who have confidence to express their innermost
problems to their members as well as to public. About 81% of Gender Cafe
members expressed that they felt safe and comfortable to talk about sexuality,
sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women among their members
if compared to the baseline about 54% of members shared about these issues with
limited people who they believe that those people would not speak out and most
of them share general conflict which do not deal with sexuality. An interesting
case of a member who did not talk and dared not to tell members even about her
name in the first meeting, yet in the 3rd meeting she could share with tears to
members about her biological father who often touched her sexual organ for ages
without punishment because she could not bring out
such issue to the public for intervention. This is also more likely resulted
from empathy among their members who motivated and inspired them to talk as
well as listen to them with mindfulness through observation from each meeting.
They do not only respect each other’s point of view, but also shared their
experience to each other both success and failure toward gender based violence
cases with mental, physical and economic supports. For example, a member who is
an entertainment worker raised about discrimination against pregnant women at
workplace: the entertainment workers are required to test pregnancy every
month, if anyone is pregnant, she has to abort her child in order to keep the
job. As women, this case annoyed and suffered other members once they heard.
Some of them encouraged her to bring the case to the enforcement officers with
seeking support from NGOs who provide legal support to women, while some shared
experience that it was useless to bring it to the police if we did not pay them
as they perceived that we deserved it because we are sex workers. Instead, they
suggested as women we have to be strong and made it loud to the public. Another
example found once one of members shared her hardship life that has to be
accountable for many grandsons and daughters with insufficient financial
support and improper shelter, other members contributed their money to help
her. The old lady feels grateful to members with million thanks.
In addition to the increment of self-confidence and sense
of solidarity among women, 40% of Gender Cafe members are confident to talk in
public and actively participated in advocacy campaigns if compared to baseline
was only 10%. 6 out of 64 members are confident to talk about their personal experience
on violence against women to public through several national radio programs
during a 16 days’ campaign to end violence against women and girls in 2014.
They were women from entertainment service, garment factories and domestic work
and were guest speakers in different radio channels on the topics of “Domestic
violence and Sexual harassment” strengthening their confidence to cope with
discrimination against them. At the same time, about 30% of them celebrated[1]
and participated in the campaign ending violence against women. Some of them
participated in national forums organized by GADC and Ministry of Women Affairs
to produce recommendations for and to launch the national policies, whilst
others cooperated with LGBTs group to organize Men Care campaign and concert to
disseminate messages to end violence against women in their respective
communities in Phnom Penh and Kandal Province.
2.
More women gained knowledge
gender related issues and increased actions to address violence against women in
their respective communities in Phnom Penh. Based on the results of each Gender
Cafe meetings, majority of Gender Cafe members who participated in the meetings
can explain gender concept and link the topic to their personal experience. For instance, once the
group discussed about gender and violence, a group of land eviction victims
described about mental and sexual harassment by their male community leaders
and husbands respectively. The male leaders insulted and did not listen to them
because they are females who they don’t believe could lead community. In
addition, some of them ended up with divorce as they could not provide sex
satisfaction to their husband because they were too tired and stressful with
activism for housing rights. Also, through coaching session, all of 2013 gender
café activists (5 women) can elaborate the issue clearly and have strong
passion on imparting their knowledge to community people. They know various
forms of domestic violence and how they are taken into account by law i.e. just
name a few, they encouraged other members to register marriage certificate as
it is a legal mean to ensure women can access to and control over resources as
equal as their husbands because most of those women have not registered
marriage. All of them were coached and provided floor to facilitate Gender Cafe
with members in 2014 on the topic of gender and health. They demonstrated the
strong confidence in facilitation, even
though their critical concept on it is still limited.
Besides improving understanding and capacity on gender, through coaching and assessments from one Gender Cafe meeting to
another, about 85% of 64 of members imparted and disseminated gender related
information[2] to their co-workers, neighbors, family members and local authorities,
whereas in baseline revealed about 40% of them shared general information about their work
experience and job opportunities. This contributed to
increase more people be aware of their rights and gain confidence to speak in
public. Some women created their own group to share information, while some
shared to individual once they have spared time or after work. For example,
after one of Gender Café members shared about the forms of violence against
women and law that protect women’s rights to their family members, her mother
decided to divorce[3] with her farther as she could not tolerate with patriarchy acts of
her husband and mother-in-law toward her. This is due to the fact that she
learnt that the actions of her husband and mother-in-law whom she lived with for
nearly 30 years were domestic violence, while in the past she thought she
deserved those actions as she was not a good wife. A part from this change, she
was confident to share her issues to national radio program to inform the
public how suffered she has experienced.
Members do not
only sharing information to their community people, but also they increased
actions to address the issues of gender based violence. They helped by
reporting violence against women (VAW) cases once they found their neighbors
were beaten by her male counterparts, while in the past they perceived VAW is a
private issue. Similarly, those women who had faced domestic violence from
their husbands, applied negotiation method rather than escape or fight against
them either mental or physical approach. For example, one woman from domestic
worker group has said that she can change her husband who always uses violence
(emotional, economic and physical) on her. In the past when her husband bit
her, she cried and tried to escape to somewhere and came back when her
husband’s anger went down. Learning from experience of members during Gender
Cafe meetings, she tried to open talk with her husband while he felt better and
together found the root causes of problem. As a result, her husband listened to
her and less committed violence to her.
III.
Challenges
• Working with EW group, their schedule is normally tight all the time
thus they cannot fully participate in three hours gender café event and
sometimes they missed the gender café. Therefore, project implementer needs to
be very flexible with time.
• Mobilizing factory worker group took very long time as this group
have actively involved in protest which makes it very hard to contact to their
representative and other partners.
• There was replaced a street vender group by a domestic worker group
as a result of their business and low commitment.
• All members of Gender Cafe are busy on week day and weekend
particularly domestic workers, except Sunday morning.
• It was found a challenge once some women tried to challenge with
their husbands to demand right to choice and voice in the families, a few
husbands feel insecurity and afraid of losing their powers so it led to more
conflict in the family. It is worthwhile to work with men about this issue.
IV.
Lessons learned
•
To inspire gender café
activism, video screening about gender related issue could work effectively to
discuss about gender related issues as it provide image rather than abstract
idea.
•
Starting by giving floor to
members to express their experiences and life story is a helpful way to start a
meaningful discussion especially to help members understand gender based violence.
•
Being involved a resource
person in technical topics such as law and health is a crucial method to
sharpen women’s understanding as they have floor to clarify their doubts. For
instance, Gender Cafe meeting on gender related law topic, which is the most
relevant because members can have very limited knowledge about laws and polices
protect their rights, was invited a practicing lawyer on this field to share
her experience to members and lots of questions were raised. As a result, once members learnt about those
policies, they are confident to either file complaint to the authorities.
•
Camping is a platform for all
women in different sectors to build relationship and strong sense of solidarity
among women to help women either within group members or outside women.
V. Annexes
• Annex 1 : Case change
• Annex 2 : Photos
[Annex 1 : Case change]
The Story of Change
“New
Life after breaking the culture the silence”
Navy[1], is
37 years old, works as a domestic worker which is one of the low paid jobs in
Phnom Penh. She married a husband, who is
a motorbike taxi driver, with one child in seven years.
She suffered discrimination and violence committing by her husband for three years in the forms of physical, psychological and economic
abuses. “We had conflicts 3-4 times per week and he often beat and insulted me
whenever I asked my husband for his income’s allocation to support family’s
livelihood” she told. ‘While I was pregnant, she did not want me to work
outside, except to be a good wife who has to take care children, house chores
and husband so he created lots of problems which forced me to resign from my
job” she added. She continued that once she quit job, her husband did not give
her enough money for household expenses, instead blamed her, without seeing how
much the family needed, on why she had to spend lots of money as it was not
easy to earn income. Her husband not only scolded but also hit her. Then, she
hid herself in my kitchen and cried alone. “At that time I did not shared and
found any support from others because I did not know where I should go and I
thought I was not a good wife— I should not argued against him that why he hit
me and it was my fault— and I might do bad things in previous life that why I
misfortunes this life” she explained.
After
joining Gender Cafe project in 2014, Navy found the gender cafe meetings are
very important and helpful so she has never been absent any meeting. She learnt
a lot about women’s rights,
gender roles, laws, social norms that viewed to women and men in difference
ways. She also learnt from members that economic independence is a crucial
factor for dealing with her conflicts. “Learning from this with motivation and
inspiration from members, I was confident (not blamed myself anymore) to
communicate with my husband about family concerns including financial issue,
children expenses and my role in economic by explaining him the reasons rather
than kept silent and cried” she described. “As a result, my husband understood and has
not use physical violence on me; he starts to respect me, shares house work
and decision in household, so our
relationship is better—from now on if my husband still commits violence on
me, I will file a complaint” she added. She has a job now so she could
afford her children to schools and save some money for purchasing a piece of
land. A part from this, Navy could negotiate with her boss about work condition
and keep her passions to share experience in public to other women and men
contributing to end domestic violence in their family.
We are together
in claiming our rights!!!
Solidarity will make us stronger!!
