SAFETY REPORT: CORE ISSUES AFFECTING SAFETY OF GIRLS IN DEVELOPING WORLDS
INTRODUCTION
The 'Safety Report: Core Issuesaffecting Girls in the Developing World' is a joint research featuring findings
from diverse geographic locations and cultures. There are innumerable factors
making the world unsafe especially for girls, and we found it necessary to
search out the cause of these vices, so as to create solutions for the root
from which these problems stem. Therefore, we aim to prove that multiple vices
can arise from a core issue and to at least start to resolve these vices, the
source has to be addressed.
Our paper takes a gendered
approach on safety issues and with each subsequent paper, we want to prove why
this is important in solving safety issues for girls, which in turn improves
wellbeing and livelihood for both and all genders. We base our overall theme on
the Data Analysis conducted by SAFIGI (Data Analysis on Core Issues affectingGirls. 2017) in Zambia, Egypt, USA, Namibia, South Sudan, and Tanzania.
SCOPE OF RESEARCH
In the 'Safety Report: CoreIssues affecting Girls in the Developing World' we refer to the developing
world as the rapidly evolving cultures and social dynamics in our global
village. Digital evolution, technological breakthroughs, and better
transportation systems has made a global culture possible. Developed and
developing worlds are not at par with basic needs or education systems, and as
we explore the Research papers from diverse settings including Africa, Asia,
and the America‘s, we will see that core issues affecting girls remain the same
regardless of their socio-economic background. The difference is in
manifestation and available interventions on the said issues.
Each paper in the Safety Report
shows a different concept and as we examine them further, we shall see how the
core issues are interrelated regardless of the applicable region. The synopsis
of each Research in this report will prove how universal issues affecting girls
can be.
CHAPTER 1 (Page 15)
Chapter 1 of the Safety Report
begins with an overview of the current situation of safety, and offers a
generalized view on why a gendered approach is necessary to solve safety
concerns. This is followed by themes from Africa, Asia, and then the America‘s.
These are divided only to show the dynamics of how women's issues are universal
and therefore, a unified approach is possible in solving these issues.
CHAPTER 2 (Page 23)
Chapter 2 contains papers with
themes in the African region setting.
The psychological effect of mass sexual harassment on girls in Egypt
Heba Elasiouty writes about the
sexual harassment phenomenon in Egypt, and how it affects the psych of Egyptian
girls, consequently feeding a vicious cycle of victim, predator, and a
desensitized community. The issue of sexual harassment is not unique to Egypt,
even though the degree to which it is perpetrated in the public square varies
steeply.
Psychological consequence of
this assault remains the same, no matter the region or cultural background. In
Chapter 4, Steffica highlights how machismo feeds into oppression of the female
gender. Continents apart and manifestation of the vice in different ways but on
the same mass victim—the female. Both papers acknowledge males also suffer in
an existing environment of normalized abuse and pinpoints how a culture of
abuse festers due to particular cultural norms or habits.
Safety concerns in relation to social media: Growing up female in an increasingly digital world
Karin Temperley highlights a
key issue affecting girls growing up in an era of the digital world. The
digital gap affects women more, and even in regions where the gap is closed,
women face greater risks when accessing the internet.
An important aspect of Karin‘s
paper is how cyber-crime is not a new phenomenon and only a new dimension for
already existing vices such bullying, scams, and human trafficking fueled by
pornography. Growing up female in an increasingly digital world proves how
technology, though it brings many good things, also leaves ‗no safe space‘ for
the woman because, as Karin explains, before social media/internet when
bullying happened, it stopped when one went home, now with cyberworld,
cybercrime extends beyond ‘temporal and spatial limits‘. Technology in itself
is not a danger, nonetheless, it affords a wider reach and universal platform
for new dangers, especially against women.
Psychosocial challenges faced by parents raising children with physical disabilities in the Oshana region
Misumbi Shikaputo offers a very
unique perspective of disability in an African setting, focusing on the Oshana
region in Namibia. She showcases the limitations that children living with
disabilities face—not because of their disability but because of societal beliefs.
In
Chapter 4, Christina Sisti
sheds light on America‘s public policy on sexuality and the repression of girls
in vulnerable regions, proving how the feminist movement is marginalizing or
excluding persons with disabilities in the struggle for gender equality. A very
important aspect here is how beliefs, even unfounded beliefs, filter into
policies and legislation that dictate law thereby creating a system that keeps
the marginalized in the same position of lack as pointed out by Alinne Lopes
Gomes in Chapter 4 on LGBT policies and safety in Brazil.
CHAPTER 3 (Page 118)
Chapter 3 focuses on Asia,
though this section of the paper can truly relate to most regions in this
refugee-crisis era.
Gender-based violence and subsequent safety challenges experienced by Rohingya women
The ongoing Rohingya crisis has
shown a different dynamic of extreme safety concerns—in which ones identity
becomes cause of persecution. Shucheesmita Simonti takes us through the refugee
experience of Rohigya women in three stages; in the homeland, in transit, and
in refugee camps. This structure, though with the Rohingya at the heart of it,
shows the issues many refugee women and migrants face during their bid for a
safer life.
Furthermore, we see why a
gendered approach is important when creating programs for gender equality and
equity, and how some aid programs may actually be reinforcing the patriarchy.
This creates a setting where a woman‘s role and body is objectified and once
more viewed as a ‗property‘ of the dominant male. This experience is not
isolated to refugees alone, as Steffica Warwick pointed out in her paper on the
perils women fleeing violence in Latin America and how they become trapped in a
web of exploitation due to vulnerability in Chapter 4.
CHAPTER 4 (Page 140)
Chapter 4 relates to both Latin
America and the United States regions.
LGBT policies and overall safety in Brazil
Alinne Lopes Gomes research
paper takes us through the history of LGBT and current legislation in Brazil.
And just as Misumbi Shikaputo and Christina Sisti pointed out, females who
stray from the idealized image of who a woman should be are further
marginalized and kept from being recognized as 'true' women. In this aspect,
during the fight for women‘s rights and human rights, they are usually left
out, even though they remain frontrunner activists when fighting for civil
rights movements, as is seen in Heba‘s paper on Egypt.
Alinne's paper points
out the importance of citizen participation in legislation as this ultimately
affects their overall wellbeing, lifespan, future, security and access to
justice. Legislation is generally understood to reflect the will of the people
and if legislation is not in favor of the marginalized, it impedes on their
rights by accommodating a law that can be used against the secluded who need it
most, for the sake of the privileged few or majority, as the case may be.
"Silent voices": Violence against the female body as a consequence of machismo culture in Latin America
Steffica Warwick proves in her
paper the correlation between culture and societal attitudes toward women—both
negative and positive. She also highlights factors in the communal environment
that create an atmosphere of vulnerability for females and exposes them to
safety risks such as human trafficking, gender based violence, and affiliation
with gangs.
Shucheesmita Simonti, in
Chapter 3, writes about this in the context of refugees and how the environment
festers a setup for exploitation, abuse, and poverty. These papers emphasize on
the need for a gendered approach and asserts the value of women‘s rights in
upholding human rights to break the cycle of inequality and abuse.
America's Public Policy on Sexuality: The Repression of Girls in Vulnerable Populations
Dr. Christina Sisti brings to
light the history of repressive policies for marginalized groups in America.
And just like Alinne Lopes Gomes, in Chapter 4, we get to see how legislation
affects societies treatment of marginalized women—even in instances when the
legislation is not based on truth but personal beliefs. Dr. Sisti stresses on
Government officials differentiating between private and public reasoning when
it comes to decision making on policies affecting citizens.
Understanding what affects safety of girls, how and why, allows for effective working solutions to be implemented. Resolving a vice through punishment is a temporal solution as opposed to solving the core crisis which would in turn resolve multiple vices.
Understanding what causes society to victimize its women more will lead us to
the core issue affecting the safety of girls. Once we understand the core
issue, we can then create programs to solve this issue from the root cause.
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| SAFETY REPORT: CORE ISSUES AFFECTING SAFETY OF GIRLS
CREDITS
LEAD RESEARCHER / EDITOR
Hadassah Louis
RESEARCHERS
Heba Elasiouty
Karin Temperley
Shucheesmita Simonti
Misumbi Shikaputo
Alinne Lopes Gomes
Steffica Warwick
Dr. Christina Sisti
EDITOR
Ahmed Mohamed Alaa El-Din
VOLUNTEER MANAGERS
Mwaka Mwandwe
Katongo Musumba
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