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The Steve Sinnott Foundation and The Gambia Teachers Union work together to alleviate School Related Gender Based Violence in The Gambia.
By Marie Antionette General Secretary Gambia Teachers Union (GTU).
Similar to countries in the sub region, The Gambia has a high prevalence of Gender Based Violence (GBV). It is one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world with at least 1 in every 3 women alive today having experienced some form of physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. School Related Gender Based Violence (SRGBV) is a Global concern.
A recent review by UNICEF reveals that sexual violence is not uncommon in the lives of many girls. Data from 40 low and middle income countries shows up to 10% of adolescent girls aged 15-19 reported incidences of gender based violence. Sexual violence, abuse, coercion and harassment at school often remain undocumented and shrouded in silence. Social taboos make researching these issues difficult.
SRGBV is a global phenomenon, preventing children especially girls exercising their right to a safe, inclusive and quality education. We do not have evidence of the full extent of SRGBV worldwide but available data on violence against children allows us to build a partial, albeit fragmented picture of the pervasive nature of SRGBV.
Although the Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) calls for ‘the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls by 20230’, limited progresses has been made by countries in West Africa towards the attainment of this target. Pre-existing toxic social norms and gender inequalities, economic stress caused by the pandemic coupled with restricted movement and social isolation measures have led to an exponential increase in GBV in the last year.
SRGBV is detrimental to children’s education. It can have serious effects on children’s health and well-being and their ability to learn to their full potential, it can negatively impact school participation, learning levels and completion rates and raises barriers to gender inequality in education and wider society. Combating gender based violence in and around the schools will help increase school attendance, enhance children’s quality education and improve learning outcomes. It is a vital component for the achievement of the SDG 4 education target.
SRGBV is an appalling phenomenon that undermines efforts to provide good quality education and achieve education for all. It has consequences on attendance, learning and completion rate of all learners and has the widest negative impacts on families and communities.
Although schools are the place where SRGBV occurs, they are also the places where it can stop. Schools should be learning environments where social norms and gender inequalities are challenged and transformed, including attitudes and practices condoning violence. SRGBV cannot be addressed unless it is better understood. The inability to recognize and respond to SRGBV prevents the transformation of schools into empowering spaces for girl’s, boys and teachers.
It is common knowledge that the outbreak of the COVID 19 Pandemic has fanned the flames with women and girls locked at home with abusers and household tensions high, calls for help skyrocketed. Women and girls became more vulnerable as they stayed most of the time at home. The Gambia Teachers Union (GTU) was getting increasing reports of child marriage, abuse and teenage pregnancy from the regional structures.
The GTU sought funding from the Steve Sinnott Foundation to train 45 young female teachers in Region Five. The training took place at the Regional Directorate in February this year and we are running additional training sessions over the coming months.
The overall goal of the training was to increase the teacher’s knowledge and shift attitudes and behaviours so that they can prevent SRGBV and respond to students who have experienced it. The objectives of the training were to help teachers to recognise their roles as protectors of children and agents of change in preventing SRGBV. To also identify what constitutes SRGBV, how to prevent it and how to respond to a student who has experienced SRGBV through direct support and the use of referral and reporting systems. The last objective was to restructure teaching practices to reinforce the prevention of SRGBV and promote a safe learning environment for all students.
Declarations from the Participants
“As a young female teacher in my school and community, I will be a role model to the girls.”
“I will be closer to the girls so as to identify their issues and help in addressing them.”
“With my colleagues in the school, we will organize ‘a girls’ hour’ every fortnight where we will assemble all the girls and discuss GBV issues and the impact it has on women and girls with them.”
“In my school I will work with the mothers club on addressing girls’ issues.”
Reflections on the training from the Participants
“The training was very educational, inspiring and timely as we are in the era of COVID-19 which has caused a whole lot of School Related Gender Based Violence.”
“Am really inspired and satisfied with the training and I will do a step down with my colleagues in my school and cluster.”
“I am thankful to the sponsor of the training and the GTU for choosing our region. I have learned a lot and I will share the knowledge with others in my school.”
“I have knowledge on how to fight SRGBV and I hope more training will be given to my colleagues in other regions so that together we will fight and eradicate SRGBV.”
“This is the best training I have had so far on Gender Based Violence and my role in fighting and eradicating it especially in my school and community.”
“Thank you Steve Sinnott Foundation for funding this training and GTU for organising it.”
“I thank the sponsor, coordinator and facilitators for the wonderful training. I have learnt a lot that I will share with others.”
“I am seeing the fight against GBV as a teamwork, so I will work with all the female teachers, mothers’ clubs, school councillors and senior management committee in the fight.”
“I am very grateful for the training and will raise awareness of GBV in my school and communities.”
Conclusion
It is time to stand up and say enough to violence. Enough to assumptions that violence is permissible or going away on its own. Enough to treating violence as anything less than a full scale crisis that we must do everything in our power to stop.
Enough!
That’s what we say, today and every day, to all forms of violence against women and girls. Enough to domestic violence, enough to rape, enough to harmful practices like female genital mutilation, and enough to impunity for one of the most flagrant and pervasive violations of human rights, women and girls have every right to live free from violence, everywhere.
Thank you Steve Sinnott Foundation for your unflinching support to the Gambia Teachers Union.
By Marie Antionette • Oct 11, 2021
Education has been identified as a key aspect to achieve societal development. This has been highlighted with the 2015 sustainable development goals, with goal 4 being to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Education has also shifted to being a means to transmit peace and global tolerance through increasing the understanding of other cultures. This has tied in with the rise of capacity development initiatives in development practice that seek to empower and enable individuals and communities to build upon their preexisting capacities. It is a key strategy to ensure educational development by international organisations, governments, and communities. The main principles of capacity development are participation, locally driven agenda, ongoing learning, long term investment and building upon local capacities. By integrating these principles into educational development, it allows for school communities to become involved in peace building activities. Through following a locally driven agenda schools can become centres for fostering peace and understanding and address local issues that may prevent children from attending or staying in school. This is what the UNESCO Associated Schools network aims to achieve by involving schools and educational institutes at a global level, creating networks of educators and students that share information, knowledge and spread UNESCOs value of peace. It aims to join schools through four pillars of learning: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together to create sustainable learning and teaching environments that involve communities in conservation activities, petitions and cultural events. Schools undertake social and educational projects that allow students to get involved with supporting developmental and humanitarian organisations, through fundraising and field trips. Recently The Steve Sinnott Foundation organised an international trip to Japan for the 70th Anniversary of UNESCO ASPnet for the Arts and Culture for peace exchange, bringing together students from The Gambia, Oman, Singapore, Korea and Coventry. By expanding education to include individuals and communities’ local agendas and addressing international issues, education can provide a platform for ongoing learning and development. It allows for students to develop their ability to think critically and connect with others meaning they can both learn and understand issues that might not be highlighted otherwise. By allowing schools, students, and communities to connect and direct their own development and focusing on developing existing capacities, the meaning and aim of education shifts from traditional roles to being focused upon understanding and peace.
Women’s and Girls’ Full Participation in Society: “Are Palestinian women reaping the benefits of education in similar ways to the rest of the world?” Palestinian women continue to be some of the most educated women in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. While women’s academic participation is indeed measurable, they are not reaping the benefits of education. Palestinian women, especially educated Palestinian women, are overlooked, and under-represented in Palestinian society. Current indicators reveal that access to education has not significantly improved women’s status in Palestinian society. It is therefore imperative to benefit from Palestinian women’s education and skills in society not only as a social right, but as a development necessity. The percentage of educated women in Palestine is remarkable and one of the highest around the world with a 99.6% in 2020 for completion in primary and upper secondary. While Palestinian women have always been visible in the national struggle, they have limited leadership and decision making-opportunities. Their participation in civil society and the formal government has been restricted. In decision making positions, women comprise only 8.3% of all ministers, 0% of ministerial representatives, and 6% of assistants to the ministerial representatives. Within all ministries women comprise 30% of staff. In the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, women are the majority, comprising 68.1%. Education unions leading by example: Education unions have viewed the education of future generations, with a focus on girls, as a form of protest, resistance to the country and Arab region’s ongoing-conflict, displacement, and upheaval. Accordingly, women and girls’ education has thrived in recent years. COVID 19 crisis a catalyst for transforming education unions: Education unions voiced that an appropriate response to COVID -19 in the education sector should consider the rights and best interests of students, teachers and education support personnel and involve education unions in developing the containment and recovery measures. This response accelerated the transformation process of the largest union in Palestine, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT). They want to have a truly representative union and integrate women educators in the union decision making structures. Despite the pandemic, GUPT continued to engage in social dialogue with the government, continued to fight for decent working conditions and welfare for teachers and education personnel and engage in a process of trade union transformation reflecting the realities of the 21st century. The union stepped up during the rapid shift to distance learning, they have developed online programmes, trained teachers on distance learning and supported students to decrease inequality among learners. The union also urged that the transformation should also challenge discrimination and increase women’s involvement in education, in trade unions and in society. This process was a driver to enhance women’s leadership within the union’s structures. From words to action: Mechanisms put in place to enhance women educators’ participation. With the support of international sister organisations, GUPT developed their own strategy to promote women’s participation and leadership within their union and in education. They developed a strategy, and we identified the following objectives: Increase the number of women in key union leadership and decision-making bodies at the regional and national level, through capacity development training on leadership for women. They have also introduced policies such as gender quotas and allocated budgets for their gender equity programmes. Activate the role of their Women’s Committee and prioritise the recruitment of young female teachers. The union is also working to identify and address the barriers to women’s participation in union leadership and decision making. In education the union is working with the Ministry of Education to review school books so that gender discrimination is not inherently written into the curriculum. GUPT is also organising sensitization training for educators so that discriminatory stereotypes are not perpetuated in the classroom. Finally, for the GUPT it is important to secure the right to education for all Palestinian students, especially girls. Teaching and learning must occur in quality, safe environments. Every effort must be made to eradicate the different types of violence that occur all too frequently in and around educational settings.
Early in my work as the president of my local teacher’s union I was invited to a community leader meeting about reforming the teaching profession. Amidst the discussion of harsher teacher evaluations, raising standards for teaching, creating easier entry into the profession, merit pay for “good” teachers, and more, I brought up the fact that working conditions and salaries hadn’t meaningfully changed since the 1960s. “We’re in favor of paying math and science teachers more so they can be compensated closer to what they’d get in the private sector,” a business community representative replied, offering an idea that was not new to me. Full disclosure: my dad was a career math teacher from that era of math and science majors who answered their government’s call to become math and science teachers who would boost the United States of America’s bench in the space race. I could easily picture how a larger salary could have changed our family’s budget. Teachers’ unions like mine (and my dad’s) addressed pay disparities based on gender that were common a generation earlier by fighting for a salary schedule focused on experience and education. So, I offered back, “If we want to differentiate pay related to the most important job in education, then we should seriously consider paying kindergarten and first grade teachers more than anyone because they teach students to read, which is the rocket science of education,” alluding to an influential issue of AFT’s American Educator magazine from 1999. “Well, I’m sure those teachers are fine but I have volunteered in first grade classrooms and their work doesn’t compare to math and science teachers.” Oh. Interesting. We clearly weren’t going to see eye to eye in our differentiated pay conversation. More so, there are decades long gender stereotypes lurking behind that conversation. In addition to the history of gender based pay inequities, elementary school teachers are assumed to be female while more secondary teachers are male. There has long been a disconnect between the importance communities, elected officials, and countries have placed on education. From local funding efforts to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education, support for education is nearly universal in most communities. That support for education doesn’t always translate to support for educators and, with a majority of educators worldwide being female, that sets a dangerous precedent. Our teachers deserve professional working conditions because teaching and learning begins with their expertise. Additionally, a teacher’s working conditions are a student’s learning conditions and so administrators, public officials, or policymakers mistreating, undermining, or disrespecting teachers sends a message to students that teachers do not deserve respect, fair treatment, or professionalization. In addition to a stubborn lack of recognition of teachers as professionals, a vicious cycle exists around salary. Teachers have historically low wages because it is feminized and because it is feminized teacher’s wages are suppressed. The evidence that belonging to a union, with the ability to negotiate collectively, improves teacher compensation is key in disrupting this vicious cycle. Teaching has been a feminized profession for over a century and, despite efforts to diversify the profession, remains a feminized profession. In fact, the OECD reports that the gender gap increased from 2005 to 2019. In order for our students to have the most representative learning conditions, we need the most representative teachers so we must continue to diversify teaching to represent everyone in our communities, including by gender. Efforts like Black Men Teach, active in my home state of Minnesota, can make a meaningful difference. I would posit treating the current majority female teaching population as professionals—with professional wages, recognizing their expertise in teaching and learning rather than infantilizing them, respecting their commitment to education rather than exploiting it—would both model for students the way to treat women (and thereby model for female students how they can expect to be treated in any profession) and create the conditions for everyone to see teaching as a profession worth pursuing.
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