Addressing gender violence and inequality in Namibia

“There is one universal truth, applicable to all countries, cultures and communities: violence against women is never acceptable, never excusable, never tolerable.” 

 – U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON

Addressing gender violence and inequality in Namibia

The promotion and protection of women’s rights is more than a moral obligation.  It is enshrined in international human rights law. The full participation of women in a country’s political, economic and social life is also vital to ensure stable and prosperous societies.

Promoting women’s rights is one of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s six human rights priorities. Throughout 2014, British Prime Minister David Cameron has called for special action towards ending violence and discrimination against women and girls. The theme of this year’s International Day of the Girl Child on 11 October was also ‘Empowering Adolescent Girls: ending the cycle of violence’.

Domestic violence by a family member or intimate partner remains the most common form of violence worldwide. Sadly, Namibia is no exception. Local newspapers are full of horrific stories of gruesome murders by domestic partners, often labelled locally as “passion killings”. The Namibian government has identified addressing gender based violence as one of its top priorities this year. Namibian lawmakers, led by a number of high profile female parliamentarians, have also identified tackling gender inequality and promoting women’s rights as fundamental to addressing this problem.

To help support this, the British High Commission in Windhoek is funding a range of projects to promote and protect women’s rights in Namibia. Through our Bilateral Project funds, we have been assisting various initiatives run by the Gender Unit of a local Non Governmental Organisation, the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), including training for community members in Luderitz on legal rights and access to legal redress for victims of domestic violence to help address the southern town’s high rates of domestic abuse.

To help support the UK’s international Preventing Sexual Violence campaign, the High Commission engaged with students from the University of Namibia’s Law Faculty, Human Rights and Documentation Centre to hold a well-attended UN Model simulation on “Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict” in June.

We are also supporting the Namibian Police Force (Nampol) with its introduction of community policing techniques nationwide with the provision of specialist gender based violence response training. In February 2015, specialist British police trainers from the UK’s International Policing Academy in Bramshill will travel to Windhoek to train 26 Nampol officers and neighbourhood watch members to handle cases of gender based violence at a community level by effectively preventing, detecting and prosecuting offenders.

But such support can only help reduce local incidents of gender based violence in countries when the root causes of domestic violence are properly addressed and the inequalities in domestic power dynamics and political and economic spheres are effectively tackled.

Ten years ago, in 2004, Namibia was a regional and international leader in terms of the percentage of women holding parliamentary seats – registering an impressive 25% of female parliamentarians. Today, this number has fallen to 22.2% – about the same as the British parliament – which is a marked contrast to women’s representation at the local government level, where women hold around 45% of all local councillor seats, as a result of local authority affirmative action measures.

Following intensive civil society action and internal political campaigning efforts, the situation at a national level is about to change though. Namibia has now signed and ratified a number of new policies and regional protocols, including the 2008 SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, which calls for 50% women representation in national politics by 2015. As a result, the country is in the midst of a dramatic shift towards gender parity in parliamentary representation after the ruling SWAPO Party decided to introduce a zebra-style 50/50 gender representation on all their party structures and parliamentary candidates list.  Other political parties have followed suit.

These changes mark exciting times for gender parity and female empowerment in “the Land of the Brave”. It is hoped that the advent of greater participation of women in Namibia’s political life will help herald additional change in the promotion and upholding of women’s rights and better treatment across the board.  The British High Commission in Namibia stands ready to support this change and to continue support projects to promote and protect women’s rights in Namibia in the years ahead.