Mobilising Men in Practice: Challenging Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Institutional Settings - Tools, Stories, Lessons

Through exploring ways of engaging men as gender activists within their every-day contexts, the Mobilising Men programme is working to better understand what it takes to confront sexual and gender-based violence in institutional settings. Since early 2010, the Institute for Development Studies, with support from United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has partnered with implementing civil society organisations in India, Kenya and Uganda to identify, recruit, train and support teams of male activists to work with women in developing campaigns to challenge and change the policies and cultures of specific institutional settings that condone or even fuel sexual and gender-based violence. This 105-page report brings together the stories and lessons learned from this work, as well as some of the tools used by the partners in India (Centre for Health and Social Justice), Kenya (Men for Gender Equality Now) and Uganda (Refugee Law Project). It is intended to inspire and guide others who are committed to engaging more men in efforts to address sexual and gender-based violence within institutions.

The report states that for many years, women have been leading the struggle against physical and sexual violence. It is essential that more men get more involved in this work to end the violence, especially because so much of this physical and sexual violence is done by men. However, in joining the struggle to end the violence, it is important that men pay attention to how they are getting involved and in what ways their involvement is supporting women’s existing and continuing efforts and leadership. This means thinking about what it means to be a good ally to women and women's organisations in their struggle against violence.

Many of the activists in the Mobilising Men programme reported both ridicule and resistance from other men, as well as some women, when they seek to challenge the unjust gender system. Helping men to deal with these fears, by talking with them about how they both give and get support, is an important part of mobilising men to be gender activists. It is also essential to discuss questions and issues of support because many men who want to get involved in challenging sexual and gender-based violence are dealing with their own trauma associated with such violence.

According to the report, exploring concepts of male privilege and power helps to get away from thinking about and responding to violence only in terms of individual acts of violence and the 'bad' men who do them, but helps men recognise that the violence is systemic, and embedded in the institutions and ideologies that dominate society. Mobilising men to challenge sexual and gender-based violence within institutional settings must therefore not only look at individuals and their behaviours but also institutional and ideological conditions that enable the violence (make the violence possible) and enact the violence (are themselves violent).

The first step in a campaign is to gather information about the nature, extent, causes and impacts of sexual and gender-based violence in different institutional settings. This will include identifying and reviewing existing sources of information, and where possible also gathering new information from people within those institutions who have been targeted or affected by such violence. Having identified objectives, targets, demands, and the frame, the next step in campaign planning is to select the strategies that will work best to meet campaign objectives. Educating people about their rights in relation to sexual and gender-based violence was an important strategy for the Moblising Men partners. This involved improving people’s knowledge of their rights as well as their ability to claim their rights from responsible authorities and hold such authorities accountable for their failure to promote and protect such rights.

The report notes that storytelling has always been central to the work of organisers and movement builders. In many ways the defining manifestation of a movement is the emergence of a common story that allows people to express their shared values and create a common vision of the change they want to see. It is important that this ‘common story’ carries across all of the strategies and activities of the campaign.

Important lessons have emerged from this work, including the following:

• Making rights education accessible in ways that resonate with people’s lived experience: Mobilising Men partners sought to connect their rights literacy work with people’s own experience by creating specific educational materials using easy-to-understand language, as well as by relating international human rights standards to local customs and practices relating to ethical conduct and notions of justice and fairness.
• Focusing on skills as well as knowledge: Mobilising Men partners also used training activities with their affected constituencies to not only pass on information about rights, but to also strengthen people’s confidence and skills in being able to claim these rights, by using role plays and other experiential training methodologies.
• Getting the support of powerful allies: An important component of rights literacy work is also working with key stakeholders, such as local council officials and the police, to enlist them as allies and help promote an environment that is more conducive to upholding the rights of key constituencies, especially in the case of groups that are socially marginalised.
• Documenting and publicising rights abuses: Rights literacy work will also be strengthened by careful documentation of rights abuses. This helps in reducing individuals’ sense of isolation when it comes to their experience of violence by reminding people that rights abuses are not isolated incidents but are widespread, and are enabled and enacted by the major institutions of society.

According to the report, although still in the early stages, a number of lessons are already being learned related to changing violence in institutions, including the following:

• Be the change you want to see in the world: The personal example of activists involved in Mobilising Men projects has proved to be inspiring to other men and helped them begin to challenge previously unquestioned institutional practices and cultures.
• Share a vision of a different future: One of the greatest obstacles to changing institutional culture, and in particular challenging patriarchal practices and attitudes within a given institution, is the sense that such practices and attitudes are too deeply entrenched to be changed. An important task confronting activists working for change at the institutional level is to hold out a vision for how things could be different.
• Build momentum: The stories of change shared highlight the importance of building momentum for change that can help to overcome the fatalism and passivity described in the previous point.
• Build alliances for persuasion and pressure: There is a need to build alliances for change with stakeholders both inside and outside of the institution and to use a mix of strategies of both persuasion and pressure that can be sustained over time. To this end, each partner convened a Country Reference Group at the beginning of their projects, comprising national stakeholders, to advise on project implementation and review project progress. These provided a forum for sharing programmatic experiences and lessons with a range of national stakeholders and for discussing particular issues and challenges facing the projects in respective countries.
• Accountability for change: Mobilising Men projects in all three countries have recognised the importance of putting in place mechanisms of accountability, not only for individuals but also for institutional authorities, in order to challenge impunity. This requires an emphasis on ‘accountability for change’, an approach that holds people to a standard of behaviour, whether in terms of personal action or institutional responsibility, that they feel both required and inspired to maintain.