UN Women organized a five-day Training of Trainers on RESPECT Framework with the following objectives:

• To strengthen the capacity of government officials on the principles and application of the RESPECT Framework.
• To review key Violence Against Women (VAW) prevention strategies and approaches outlined in the RESPECT Framework and implementation guidance.
• To understand the core elements of successful VAW prevention programs.
• To equip government officials with the skills and technical knowledge to train others within their respective agencies or departments on the RESPECT Framework.

The essence of the training was to enable the participants to facilitate step-down RESPECT training in their various states in addressing cases of Violence Against Women and girls using the RESPECT Framework. The participants were drawn from all the six geopolitical zones of the country and were senior staff selected from NGOs and line ministries.

The training session began with an introduction of participants and the work of their organisations. This was shortly followed with the meaning of Violence Against Women (VAW). It was defined to be any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.

The forms of VAW include the physical, sexual, emotional and economic forms. VAW could happen at home, school, community, work place, public spaces, etc. Its consequences at the individual level include the following: mental imbalance, death, injury, depression, low birth weight baby, alcohol use disorders, victims more likely to acquire HIV and other sexually transmissible infections, etc.

The effects of VAW are so numerous both at the individual, community or societal levels that it became necessary to develop this RESPECT Framework to prevent and address the issues in a holistic approach putting into consideration the source and drivers of violence.  

According to the RESPECT Framework, “VAW is a violation of human rights, is rooted in gender inequality, is a public health problem, and an impediment to sustainable development.’’

RESPECT framework was developed by WHO and UN Women ,and endorsed by 12 other agencies. It was launched in 2019 and aimed primarily at policy makers. RESPECT Framework stands for the following interventions:

R-Relationship skills strengthened: This refers to strategies to improve skills in interpersonal communication, conflict management and shared decision-making. Examples of activities to achieve this are through group-based workshops with women and men to promote egalitarian attitudes and relationships, couple counseling and therapy.  

E-Empowerment of women: This refers to economic and social empowerment strategies including those that build skills in self-efficacy, assertiveness, negotiation, and self-confidence. Examples are through empowerment training for women and girls including life skills, safe spaces, mentoring, inheritance asset ownership policies and interventions, microfinance or savings and loans plus gender empowerment components.

S-Services ensured: This refers to a range of services including health, police, legal, and social services for survivors of violence. These interventions are empowerment and counseling interventions or psychological support to ensure access to services .e.g. Women’s police stations/units.

P-Power reduced: This refers to strategies targeted to women or the household, whose primary aim is to alleviate poverty such as economic transfers, cash transfer, labour force intervention including employment policies, livelihood and employment training.

E-Environments made safe: This refers to efforts made to create safe schools, public spaces and work environments, among others. Example of this is a whole school intervention.

C-Child and adolescent abuse prevented: This includes strategies that establish and nurture family relationships. Examples of this include home visitation, health worker outreach, parenting interventions, psychosocial support interventions for children who experience violence and who witness intimate partner violence.

T-Transformed attitudes, beliefs and norms: This refers to strategies that challenge harmful gender attitudes, beliefs, norms and stereotypes. Examples include community mobilization, group-based workshops with women and men to promote changes in attitudes and norms, group education with men and boys to change attitudes and norms, etc.

There was also a session on monitoring and evaluation.

Monitoring was defined as the systematic process of collecting, analyzing and using information to track a program’s progress toward reaching its objectives and to guide management decisions. Monitoring usually focuses on processes, such as when and where activities occur, who delivers them and how many people or entities they reach.

Evaluation was defined as the systematic assessment of an activity, project, program, strategy, policy, topic, theme, sector, operational area or institutions’ performance. Evaluation focuses on expected and achieved accomplishments, examining the results chain (inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes and impacts), processes, contextual factors and causality, in order to understand achievements or lack of achievements.

The following were the reasons for monitoring and evaluation of VAW:

1. To build a strong global evidence base on what works to prevent and respond to violence against women.

2. To track program progress and effectiveness, and understand why and how change happens.

3. To help identify the most effective and efficient violence prevention interventions that can be brought to scale.

4. To identify and manage risks that could affect the program and beneficiaries.

5. To ensure consistent measurement and tracking of progress in preventing VAW globally.

There was also a session on facilitating skills and at the end of the session, the participants took turns to facilitate each of the RESPECT Framework strategies.

The training was quite impactful and gave us the opportunity to talk about what we do in our respective organizations. At the end of the training, all the participants were grouped according to their geopolitical zones and a work plan was developed for the step-down training in the various zones.                                                                                           Reported by Blessing Ehiagwina.