Gender-based violence in Cambodia

1. Project Description
This project will empower women's organizations in Cambodia to use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to monitor government prevention efforts and responses to VAW; to aggregate and analyze data that captures these efforts and to produce evidence that can be used to assist the Cambodian government to combat and eliminate violence against women.
 
The capacity of women's rights organizations to use ICTs to monitor the implementation of the country's National Action Plan to End Violence against Women and other commitments will be strengthened through the project. This will in turn contribute towards a more active citizenry that are able to fullfill their commitments, promote transparency, and in this way contribute towards achieving the country's developmental goals, including the Millennium Development Goals. Greater public awareness of both the incidence of VAW as well as the governments' response to it as a result of the project will also stimulate increased focus on the effectiveness or lack thereof of support and response mechanisms for victims and survivors of VAW. The evidence building aspect of the project is a critical part of building a public discourse on combating GBV of the government to meeting its development goals.
 
2. Collaboration and Networking
 
The Open Institute (OI) is collaborating with a number of other organizations on this project. APC is leading the project and we are the main local partner organization responsible for collecting the data and undertaking training with our local partners here. OI has a strong relationship with the National League of Communes/Sangkats (NLC/S) which is an invaluable resource to assist us in gathering the required data and information on GBV in the communes/Sangkats. The NLC/S has been selected as our partner because it is a strong network of local authorities comprised of more than 1600 communes across Cambodia.
 
The NLC/S in cooperation with the Ministry of Planning, conducts a survey every year for community development in which gender-based violence (GBV) is one of the issues in the survey. The result of the survey will be publicized and made available through the National Institute of Statistic (NIS) (see http://www.nis.gov.kh/ ). Our cooperation with them will be the combination of efforts on GBV that will validate the number of GBV incidents in Cambodia. The official results will be reported in the next Project Progress Report.
 
In terms of useful networks, OI is part of the Cambodian ICT4D (Information Communication Technologies for Development) Network and ICT4Democracy that included OI, SPIDER, East West Management Institute, InSTEED, Women Media Center, and the APC . These networks give us access to a wide range of talented, well informed and interested stakeholders in this area. We have been drawing on this network for comments and feedback on the draft GBV questionnaire.
 
The OI is also cooperating with SPIDER on a number of SPIDER's research projects. These include on: 1) Dialogue on Democracy Research; and 2) Holding Government Accountable for GBV in Cambodia.
 
3. The Progress Status of the project
 
This project can be considered as an initiative study on a diagnostic of the government's mechanism for combating gender-based violence in Cambodia. The approach of the study is to gather information on the occurrences of violence in 2011 through a questionnaire in four selected areas: Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Battambong and Kompong Thom. Moreover, the questionnaire also covers a range of questions which relates to evaluate the rate of effectiveness of the national institutions' systems for preventing/responding to violence again women in the studied areas.
 
To follow the successful footstep of The Democratic/Republic of Congo's projects on violence against women, our study also adopts the utilization of template/platform methodology to reflect and visualize the information of GBV (statistical data and descriptive date) through the questionnaire.
 
On 31 August 2012, we launched a consultative meeting to discuss the draft of GBV questionnaire. The aim of the meeting was to seek feedback, comments and constructive criticism on the draft Gender Based Violence questionnaire. We specifically sought comments in relation to the scope of the questionnaire, the specific wording of the questions, and the applicability to the National League of Communes and Sangkats.
 
There were numbers of targeted participants participated the meeting:
 

  1. The councilors from communes and sangkat
  2. Representative from related NGOs attend the meeting a. UNWomen b. GIZ c. Peace and Development (PYD) d. Gender and Development of Cambodia (GAD/C) e. EPACT/Cambodia f. The East West Management Institute (EWMI) g. InSTEDD

 
The result of the meeting provided us several comments as general comments and specific comments in relation to each problem of GBV occurrence, government's accountability system and the capacity of GBV stakeholder's institution. These comments assisted us as a strong base to modifying the draft questionnaire to be a proficient and more appropriate questionnaire.
 
 
 

Welcoming Remarks by Ms. Manavy at the first meeting on GBV questionnaire 31 Aug 2012 Photo: Open Institute

Presentation on the overview of GBV project at the first meeting on GBV questionnaire 31 Aug 2012 Photo: Open Institute

1st meeting on GBV questionnaire 31 Aug 2012 Photo: Open Institute
NGOs gave feedback on questionnaire at the first meeting on GBV questionnaire 31 Aug 2012 Photo: Open Institute

Councilors gave feedback on questionnaire at the first meeting on GBV questionnaire 31 Aug 2012 Photo: Open Institute
Opening remarks by the Representative of NLC-S at the first meeting on GBV questionnaire 31 Aug 2012 Photo: Open Institute

 

 

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