The Programme Director of Africa in Democracy and Good Governance, Mr. Edwin Nebolisa, has said that violence against women undermines poverty reduction and development efforts as well as hampers women productivity and health. He added that violence against women also prevents girls from attending school and has been one of the causes for the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Nebolisa made this remarks on Tuesday, 17 March, 2009, at a ceremony marking International Women's Day, held at the Serrekunda West Football ground.

The ADGG Programme Director said that the 2000 Millennium Declaration recognises the global potential to realise a new vision and the dangers that threaten it, including gender based violence and that, in the same year, the United Nation Security Council adopted Resolution 1325, recognising the impacts of war on women; that this Resolution was further strengthened in 2008 by Resolution 1820, which recognises sexual violence in conflicts as a security issue and thus demanding a security response.

Mr. Nebolisa said the momentum is building, noting that a total of one hundred and eight five (185) States have ratified the Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and that ninety (90) States have ratified its optional protocol, thereby giving individuals and groups of women the right to take complains of their rights violations directly to the Commission and request an investigation.

The ADGG Programme Director further said that most states have adopted law and policies to eliminate gender discrimination and that at least eight nine (89) them have some legislative provisions to address domestic violence. He said rape is now a crime in almost all countries and that marital rape can be prosecuted in at least one hundred and four (104) States.

He revealed that the World Bank's prediction that this year, in developing countries, up to fifty three (53) million people will be driven to poverty, brings the total number of those living on less then two dollars a day to over 1.5 billion.

According to Mr. Nebolisa, this grim prediction will seriously jeopardize the achievements of MDGs which seek to slash poverty, hunger, infant and materiality mortality and illiteracy by 2015. He added that the scale and impact of the current crises is still largely unknown but it is expected that women and girls, in both developed and developing countries, will be particularly affected by job cuts, lost of livelihoods, increase responsibilities and an increase in societal and domestic violence.

A systematic gender analysis of the current economic crisis, said Mr. Nebolisa, is critical for developing viable solutions and upholding human rights standards. He said studies have shown that violence against women intensifies when men experience displacement and dispossession, relating to economic crisis, migration, war, foreign occupation or other situations, where masculinity compete and power relations are unearthed in society and that this makes it crucial to challenge norms of masculinity, in terms of global economic and financial crisis.