ADDRESSING INTIMATE PARTNER SEXUAL VIOLENCE (IPSV) - Dr Sangeet Harry Jooseery

Sexual offences in Mauritius have continued to rise since 20131. Between 2012 and 2013, the number of reported sexual offences increased by 29% from 455 to 588.

The high increase in sexual offences was driven by increases of 63% among sexual offences under the Child Protection Act (CPA), 32% in sexual intercourse with minor under 16 and 10% in rape.

The rate of sexual offences per 100,000 population was 47 in 2013 compared to 36 in 2012. A higher proportion of victims of sexual assaults were young females. Compared to 2012, the female victimization rate for sexual offences for the Island of Mauritius in 2013 rose from 59 to 76 per 100,000 female population.

The sexual offences resulted in 535 victims of whom, 88% were females, 59% were aged below 16 years, 58% were students, 55% occurred in private households, 23% of the victims had family relationship with their offenders.

From 2012 to 2013, sexual offence convictions increased by 16% from 190 to 220 mainly due to rises in rape from 2 to 18 and sodomy from 10 to 16.

In 2013, 1,786 cases of domestic violence were reported at the Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare, nearly 90.1% of which were against women. Though women are more likely to be victims, domestic violence against men is on the increase; some 10 years back, one of every 34 cases of domestic violence was against men compared to one out of every 9 cases in 2013.

In 2013, some 27% of women victims of domestic violence reported physical assault by spouse or partner, 18% verbal assault by spouse or partner (ill treatment, harassment, abuse, and humiliation), 13% threatening assault by spouse and 11% harassment by spouse. Reported cases by men relate mostly to physical assault by spouse or partner (15%) and verbal assault by spouse or partner (14%).

The total number of cases of child abuse reported at the Child Development Unit of the Family Support Bureau was 5,684 of which 54% was female.

The most common nature of abuse is psychological/emotional (25.7% for male and 24.5% for female) followed by neglect cases (15.4% male and 12.5% for female) and physical abuse (14.0% for male and 9.8% for female)

Men are more likely to be victims of homicides and assaults while women are more prone to sexual offences. In 2012, 79% of the homicides and 57% of the assaults were committed against men. Women were victims to 86% of the sexual offences.

Boys are much more likely to commit offences than girls. In 2012, only 4.9% of the juvenile offences were committed by girls. The female juvenile delinquency rate stood at 1.3 while that for males was nearly 10 times higher.

Increased exposure of men and women, including the young generation to risk factors cited above are obvious causes of concern. The social context in Mauritius has drastically changed with increased reported cases of child abuse, domestic and gender based violence, crime, rape, drug and alcohol abuse, as shown in Tables 1 and 2 above. Teenage pregnancies, especially in pockets of poverty have increased.

Mauritius, despite its economic progress is still a patriarchal society, where male dominance is prevalent among all classes, including the rich. Women are more likely than men to live in poverty. In 2012, 10.5% of the female population was living below poverty line compared to 9.0% for the males.

As evidenced by statistics above the most vulnerable sections of the population at risk of IPSV are women and students, especially girls.

Objectives of the Project:

· To raise awareness on the problem, risk and causes of Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence (IPSV)

· To enlist media support and engagement

· To socially contextualize educational and counselling sessions by connecting violence to deep rooted social factors like gender inequality, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty etc. and promote change in attitude and behavior among men and women

This project will adopt a Three-Pronged Strategic Methodological Approach to address the problem of IPSV in Mauritius.

(i) Community Awareness Campaign. The first strategic approach will be the creation of awareness among members of the community. However, awareness alone does not help. There is need to have public support and here the role of the media is essential. Very often the role of the media in intervention programme has been unfortunately neglected.

(ii) Media Support. The second strategic approach will be to enlist the support of the media, maximize media usage, including digital media link.

(iii) Social Marketing. The third strategic approach will be to promote tailor-made social marketing so as to effectively change attitude and behavior among the population. Accordingly there is need to fully understand the context and use to, using community friendly actors (which have been termed “bystanders” in this project and is explained below) to bring meaningful change in society.

Implementation

 The APD  implemented this project in close collaboration with the Ministry of Gender Equality, Child development and Family Welfare. Educational Sessions were conducted at women centres in the regions of Bambous, Abercrombie, Barkly and Wooton. Officials from Ministry ensured logistic arrangements, provided support and assistance. Resource persons from the Ministry and other  bodies helped to organise information, education and counselling sessions and network with the media. Community Based Organisations, Religious and Community Leaders were also  invited to assist.

 General Educational sessions (48 sessions) for 1920 community members supported by 1000 flyers with simple messageswere organized in four urban regions. 1000 Posters and 20 banners with specific messages were placed at strategic points in the community.  One National Sharing of Experience Workshop was organized with the participation of 80 representatives of the 4 regions on IPSV, to enable effective sharing of experiences and also good practices in handling IPSV.

Community education was complemented by media campaign. A Communication Cell involving all actors in the field was set up to ensure that all channels of communication are tapped effectively. Products for news media outreach  included:

Ø Digital Media - monthly news information with supporting descriptive information, easily formatted were sent electronically through new channels like Facebook, Web page, Twitter and others

Ø Media Advisory Bulletins – monthly bulletins were used to advise reporters on events. This approach was supported by photographs, interviews and responses from the community and feedback received.

Ø Press Articles – half yearly articles related to IPSV and on programmer interventions, together with interviews with the beneficiaries were arranged for the press.

Ø Press kit –100 simple fact sheets, flyers and charts related to intervention programme and progress were sent to the press.

A Social Marketing Campaign was also organised. Focus Group Discussions were undertaken to understand the specificity of the audience. 4 FGDs will be organized in the 4 selected areas for 60 participants.

A group of 40 Bystanders was set up and trained. and trained bystanders were used to facilitate counselling and education sessions specific to their social context in which they operate.

20 trained Bystanders would be selected to organize and facilitate 20 Group Discussions for 400 participants)on the prevalence and risk factors of IPSV, and 8 single gender sensitization sessions (2 in each region) for 160 participants.

An Impact Assessment was conducted in all the 4 regions to determine the extent to which the project intervention has made effective changes in terms of knowledge gained, media and community support, and behaviour change. An independent consultant was recruited to assess impact. The findings will now be a basis for the development of the second phase of the project.