This is a study on Gender Based Violence in Namibia. It took place in the following places: Caprivi, Erongo, Karas, Kavango, Kunene, Ohangwena, Omaheke, Otjozonjupa.
The Commonwealth Secretariat has been a pioneer in promoting women’s rights and gender equality since the 1976–85 UN Decade for Women, and of gender mainstreaming since the UN 4th World Conference on Women, to which our 1995 Plan of Action on Gender and Development was a Commonwealth contribution. This publication brings together case studies prepared in connection with the end-of-term review of the 2005–15 Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality. The case studies are based on submissions and interviews with government representatives, gender specialists and other stakeholders, including civil society organisations, from 20 countries representing all regions of the Commonwealth. The examples were selected to demonstrate a range of strategies that can be employed to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. Together they help to show what perpetuates gender inequality and offer approaches that can be adopted to help end unjust discrimination.
The Namibian constitution makes full provision for education as a fundamental human right and freedom. Three years into independence, as part of the governments educational policy, the Education for All Policy was launched as a stepping stone to free quality education. However, inequities have become widely pronounced within the Namibian educational system. Democracy and Education in Namibia and beyond debates the educationdemocracy nexus in Namibia and the southern African context. It defines and explores the meaning of democracy and related concepts. It also looks at what democracy means in the context of human rights and access to education. The ten chapters in this collection interrogate the strengths and limitations of education as an instrument of social change and question whether or not the Namibian educational objectives and practices do develop and help to sustain a democratic culture in Namibia. The authors in the collection have drawn material from their own teaching and research experience across the fields of education and social science in Namibia and beyond, and present their findings in a pedagogical framework suitable as a challenging text for tertiary students. At a time when education is in crisis, especially in South Africa where strident calls for free tertiary education and Africanisation of the curriculum are spreading like wildfire, this book gives scholarly insight into the history and social conditions that gave rise to our current predicament.
Africa has witnessed massive changes in the last fifty years – from independence through structural adjustment, rule by military juntas in several countries and to a period now where the focus is on how best to prioritize their needs based on resources, national goals and human potential. There is general agreement that human capital is important in economic growth and development. There is always the need to ensure that resources and human capital are used appropriately to advance development. Gender disparities, whether in treatment, access to resources, resource utilization and the law, may in themselves retard or slow down development. Resources and human potential in all societies include how best to ensure there is no gender disparity and to fully tap the resources inherent in women for personal, social and national development. Beginning with the women’s suffrage movement, there has been the push to encourage gender equality worldwide. The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 embodies the commitment of the international community to implement policies that will enhance the political, social, economic, educational empowerment of women. This book highlights the issues affecting women in Eastern and Southern Africa – what role does custom and patriarchy play in gender disparities in education, access to health, problems in the workplace and family relationships? How have women writers in the last twenty years presented the issues of patriarchy, women’s rights, globalism and women’s holistic development? What are recent developments that have helped improve the situation for some women? These are some of the issues that are covered in this book. The thesis of this book is that there have been policies and strategies developed that have worked to empower women. However, vestiges of sexism, gender disparities in several fields still remain and traditions/customs and patriarchy have aided in still keeping women down.div“/div>
This book explores what victimology, as both an academic discipline and an activist movement, has achieved since its initial conception in the 1940s, from a variety of experts’ perspectives. Focussing on nine, dynamic and contemporary case studies covering topics like violence against women and girls, bereaved family activism, and environmental victims and climate change activists, each chapter critically examines how different crime victims have been politicised and explores the impact of victim-centred reforms upon criminal justice professional cultures. This book comprehensively and critically examines the historical, social and political factors, including the work of activists, that have shaped the development of theories, policies and reforms in this field, including how victimhood has come to be understood and responded to. The chapters also consider the future developments of this area, including how digital technologies are creating new forms and experiences of victimisation. Speaking to undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals in criminal justice and third sector organisations, this book discusses the links between theory, policy and professional practice and how they contribute to and facilitate debates regarding what the role of crime victims is in a 21st century criminal justice system.
Worldwide, Namibia ranks high regarding gender equality. However, many women are intimidated by violence perpetrated by men. This book is based on a social anthropological field research in the small town of Outjo, situated in Northern Central Namibia, over a period of 14 months. Gender is learnt, lived and reproduced in a societal frame. Violence against women, too, is perpetrated by men in a societal context. By using mainly qualitative research methods, Sonja Gierse-Arsten looks at male and female perspectives to reach a holistic understanding and to provide a basis for sustainable changes towards equal gender relations. She traces the transition from a hierarchical gender system during colonial times to the aspired equal gender relations in present Namibia. Current challenges characterised by poverty and great economic inequalities form the framework in which gender is performed and violence perpetrated. This study offers inspirations to re-think gender to reach substantive gender equality and to overcome the normalisation of violence.