MADRE’s new campaign uplifts the voices and expertise of our community-based partners to the forefront of the global effort to address increasing levels of domestic violence resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many of our partners have experience addressing gender-based violence in the context of armed conflict or other disasters. Facing the COVID-19 crisis, they have innovated and adapted. Their solutions are vital, especially for others searching for ways to respond. Together, we are mobilizing tools and resources to prevent, address, and document domestic violence in local communities, and advocating for policymakers to prioritize local, women-led strategies.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic violence was already a global emergency. Measures to control the spread of coronavirus like restrictions on movement, while important for public health, have exacerbated conditions that too often lead to violence. Those who face gender-based violence and discrimination and persecution on the basis of race, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, caste, or class, are at further risk and often have access to fewer resources.
This global emergency calls on us to not only support survivors of domestic violence. We must confront the root causes of gender-based violence throughout the globe. We must create change out of crisis.
In coalition with Media Matters for Women, MenEngage, OutRight Action International, Women Enabled, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), we aim to bring meaning to UN Secretary-General Guterres’ recent call for a global “ceasefire” on domestic violence.
The emergency responses we enact now will seed plans globally to address the rise in gender-based violence that crises invariably trigger while strengthening mechanisms to address the domestic violence that has affected so many.
Our Key Strategies
Interventions to confront domestic violence might work in one place, but those same strategies might not serve the communities of our partners -- places confronting war and climate breakdown. That’s why we’re:
- Compiling and developing concrete strategies for local organizations, informed by the grassroots expertise of our partners
- Creating real-time mechanisms for activists to learn from one another, helping ensure that successful strategies can be replicated
- Developing and disseminating recommendations for policymakers, and advocating for their implementation.
Use our toolkit in your work to address domestic violence under COVID-19.
Our toolkit of best practices by Global South women’s organizations is tailored to the current environment of physical distancing, social isolation, and lockdowns, including guidance on using social media in domestic violence prevention campaigns. We also include specific sections on addressing violence towards LGBTIQ people and people with disabilities and on working with men as allies. The toolkit also provides practical tips for Global South organizations working in conflict areas as well as in rural and urban settings.
You can find a copy of the toolkit here in English, Spanish, French, Swahili (DRC), Arabic, and Kurdish. If you are visually impaired and would prefer a copy in Word, please email advocacy@madre.org.
- Read our op-ed about increases in domestic violence that our partners are observing in their communities.
- Read our briefing paper about the problem of domestic violence under COVID-19 and share best practices that our partners and feminist allies use to prevent, address, and document violence. If you are visually impaired and would prefer a copy in Word, please email advocacy@madre.org
- MADRE and MenEngage Alliance co-hosted an online workshop hosted to discuss the links between masculinities and domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first of a series of online workshops we will be hosting covering a series of topics related to addressing domestic violence under COVID-19. If you would like more information about upcoming workshops please email advocacy@madre.org.
- MADRE and our partner SOFEPADI testified to the UN Security Council’s Informal Experts Group on Women, Peace and Security about the gendered impacts of COVID-19. We provided Council Members with practical recommendations on how to address domestic violence in the pandemic, drawing examples from SOFEPADI’s innovative work in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A Virtual Training on Domestic Violence in the Midst of the Pandemic
MADRE is hosting trainings to highlight the best practices from Global South organizations that safely and effectively adapted their work on domestic violence when faced with the global health crisis. Rooted in examples from these groups, the training focuses on tools that can be adapted to any local context and includes a discussion on the various forms of domestic violence. These trainings are conducted in English, with translation available in Spanish, French, Arabic, and Kurdish depending on the session. Click here for details on future training dates, RSVP information, and language options.
Watch a recording of a previous training below:
December 2020
The training was conducted in English with translation in French and Spanish, and this recording is in English.
March 2021
The training was conducted in English with translation in Arabic and Kurdish, and this recording is in English.
COVID-19, gender-based violence and masculinities
MADRE's Senior Legal Advisor, Lisa Davis, sat down with MenEngage to discuss how to confront domestic and gender-based violence worsened by this pandemic.
Highlights from Our Partners
Democratic Republic of Congo
SOFEPADI’s experience fighting the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo has prepared them to respond quickly to the current COVID-19 pandemic. SOFEPADI has created videos and innovative social media messaging to address domestic violence and raise awareness of virus prevention. SOFEPADI is also working in refugee camps and remote areas of the country to distribute sanitation and medical supplies.
Lebanon
ABAAD MENA in Lebanon has developed a creative way of sharing information about a domestic violence help-line – through banners placed on balconies and in windows – overcoming constraints of isolation and limited internet or phone services.
Nicaragua
Wangki Tangni is spreading the word on COVID-19 prevention and gender-based violence through its Indigenous women-led radio station and outreach through their network of human rights organizers. They are reaching 115 remote Indigenous communities who lack access to medical services and life-saving information in Nicaragua.
Palestine
Salon Plus is using online resources like WhatsApp and Facebook to connect with women and girls in facing an increase of gender-based violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization is sharing information and holding workshops, as well as counseling sessions, to address the impact of the crisis and domestic abuse.
