Taking a stand against gender-based violence

This piece from International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds first appeared in the Daily Record.

Anneliese Dodds has marked the UN’s annual 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence by launching a UK Government clampdown targeting internet abusers. The Aberdeen-born minister is working to reduce women and girls’ exposure to harmful online content with a £27 million global initiative. Here she discusses how the UK Government works with partners to support women and girls year round.

Every 10 minutes, a woman somewhere in the world is killed by a family member or partner. This is an absolutely sickening statistic which simply cannot be tolerated. Failure to understand the seriousness of abuse against women and girls costs lives.

That’s why when I became Minister for Development, I said I’d put women and girls at the heart of everything we do and we’re already taking tough action to tackle violence and abuse against women and girls. Abusers are using the internet to harass, stalk and push misogynistic content, with 85 per cent of women around the world having witnessed or been subjected to online abuse and violence.

So this week we announced measures to target online violence to mark the start of this year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, with a £27 million global initiative to support survivors.

Online violence is wrecking lives and the UK Government is determined to counter this threat, which is why we’ve also launched a global initiative to prevent Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence.

We are also working with partners in the worst-affected countries to minimise women’s exposure to harmful content. We played a major role in achieving a 15 percent drop in child marriage in the last decade, averting 25 million marriages, and have protected more than 160,000 girls under 14 from female genital mutilation globally.

But putting an end to violence against women and girls is not just the work of 16 days – for the remaining 349 days of the year, we will do everything we can to eliminate this hatred.

Having grown up in Scotland, I am proud the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund is one of our many partners.

The charity used UK Aid Match funding to double public donations to its WEE BOX appeal in 2020, to fund a £2.4 million programme of life-changing help for women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo – where more than a million have been subjected to rape, and 120,000 gender-based violence cases were reported last year.

SCIAF’s three-year project puts local partners on the ground at the heart of its work – delivering powerful results to improve the lives of more than 7,000 survivors of gender-based violence.

But we know if men and boys with troubling views about women are not challenged and educated, they can store up problems in relationships, which in some cases can lead to violence. 

So a vital component of SCIAF’s work has been with male community figures to promote positive masculinity and encourage gender equality. A key thrust of this year’s campaign is “it starts with men” – calling on males to do more to challenge gender stereotypes underpinning such violence.

Feedback from those supported by SCIAF saw 94 percent agree the programme had improved their lives – so we know education works to break this horrific cycle.

We can only build a fairer, safer world, free from violence, if we put women and girls at the heart of our efforts. This is a government of change and, together, we can make sure no one is left behind.