New Report: Scaling Up for Zero Tolerance: Country Reports in Ghana, Rwanda and South Africa

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Scaling Up for Zero Tolerance: Civil Society Leadership in Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls in Ghana, Rwanda, and South AfricaAt the XVII International AIDS Conference, the Global AIDS Alliance will release an update on its Zero Tolerance campaign to address violence against women and violence against children that focuses on efforts to scale up effective programs in three African countries.

Titled Scaling Up for Zero Tolerance: Civil Society Leadership in Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls in Ghana, Rwanda, and South Africa, the report explores successes—and challenges—of scaling up comprehensive national programs to prevent, respond to, and mitigate the impacts of violence against women and girls (VAW/G) and violence against children (VAC). The countries selected for the study—Ghana, Rwanda, and South Africa—demonstrate concerted efforts to address the problem. Each country provides positive examples that VAW/G and VAC can be addressed, despite the incredibly high prevalence of violence and the strong role that socio-cultural norms play in perpetuating this epidemic of violence.

The report makes recommendations to civil society, national governments, bilateral and private donors, and multilateral agencies. The most important trend in this report, and therefore one of its most important recommendations, is that all donors must focus on building the capacity of indigenous civil society organizations, since they are delivering a large portion of VAW/G and VAC services at the community level, best understand the local environment that perpetuates VAW/G, VAC and HIV/AIDS, and serve important roles as government watchdogs and advocates. At the same time, national governments must increase their role in preventing and responding to VAW/G and VAC by making real commitments and ending tokenistic attention to the issue.Click here to download Scaling Up for Zero Tolerance.Click here to download GAA's August 2006 Zero Tolerance report.

The research on which Scaling Up for Zero Tolerance is based was conducted by experts in the countries profiled, through literature reviews, interviews with experts and stakeholders, and legal analysis.

• In Ghana, Joana Nerquaye-Tetteh, former Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood Association. • In Rwanda, Balikungeri, Executive Director of the Rwanda Women’s Network. • In South Africa, Romi Fuller, Pino, and Collet Ngwane of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

The report itself contains both a summary of the points raised in the background case studies produced in the three countries profiled, and analysis that is a combination of that done by the authors of the background studies and the author of this report.

The country case studies will be posted on this web page soon. Click below for an overview of country-level successes and obstacles in eliminating violence against women and girls:

Ghana (PDF)Rwanda (PDF) South Africa (PDF)