On the sidelines of the Sixty-ninth Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, Spotlight Initiative's Civil Society Reference Group organized a side event on how to take a feminist approach to ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG). Drawing on achievements from the Initiative's first phase and panellists' own experiences, the session examined systemic challenges to ending gender-based violence. It also outlined key lessons for the second phase of Spotlight Initiative. These include centring and meaningfully engaging civil society in shared leadership of the Initiative; programming that prioritizes collaboration, quality and outcomes for women and girls; funding mechanisms that are accessible, accountable and fit for purpose; and putting human rights at the centre of the Initiative and ensuring that their defenders are protected.
Speakers and panellists included Founder of the Me Too Movement Tarana Burke; Spotlight Initiative Global Coordinator Erin Kenny; Spotlight Initiative Civil Society Global Reference Group Member Terry Dale Ince and Deputy Director of UN Women's Civil Society Division, Vivek Rai. Former Civil Society Global Reference Group Member Lara Fergus presented Spotlight Initiative's co-design principles and the session was moderated by Spotlight Initiative Civil Society Global Reference Group Member Shamah Bulangis.
Below are some of the key takeaways from 'Ending violence against women and girls: a feminist global approach'.
1. Ending violence against women requires an intersectional response
"In 2006, when I started the Me Too Movement - long before it became a hashtag - it was to create healing spaces for young Black girls that experienced sexual violence, understanding that their experience of violence was compounded by racism, by poverty and by the ways that Black girls are adultified and sexualized from a young age," said Me Too Founder Tarana Burke. "This is what a feminist approach gives us - the ability to see violence against women not as isolated instances but as an expression of power manifestations of interconnected systems that must be dismantled together. When we centre the most marginalized women, when we build solutions that serve immigrant women, women with disabilities, trans women and women in poverty, we create solutions that work for everyone."
Former Spotlight Initiative Civil Society Reference Group Member Lara Fergus echoed this need for intersectionality: "We will not end violence against women and girls without ending violence against gender diverse and trans people because they have the same underlying drivers of that violence. Even if you look at risk factors from purely a public health perspective, rigid adherence to binary gender roles are key drivers of [both kinds of] violence."
2. Civil society must be at the heart of violence elimination
"We took a very intentional approach to go beyond the people we've always worked with, to go out into the communities and to figure out ways to reach people who don't speak the national languages or who have never written a grant proposal to the UN," said Spotlight Initiative Global Coordinator Erin Kenny of the Initiative's feminist approach.
"Spotlight Initiative didn't just try to change laws, or improve police practice or to undertake a localized prevention programme," said Ms. Fergus. It tried to do all of these things across various national contexts. In doing so, it provided a seat at the table for members of civil society that had previously been ignored. Structurally oppressed groups that in some cases have never sat at the table with the government or the UN before, such as those working for LGBTQI rights, sex worker rights, indigenous rights and disability rights. It recognized women's movements as core to EVAWG and sought to fund them in their own right."
Forty-nine per cent of Spotlight initiative's phase one programme funds - or US$195 million -- went to civil society organizations, 73 per cent of them women-led.
3. Men and boys need to be part of the solution
"Bringing men and boys into this conversation is critical," said Deputy Director of UN Women's Civil Society Division, Vivik Rai. "For too long, the burden of this work has been led by women and girls... Let's move beyond allyship. It has to be about structural transformation and understanding how patriarchy is decimating the lives of everybody. Really understanding that what we are doing is about human rights, gender justice and democracy. There's an assault on all three and we need to look at these in a comprehensive approach."
Since 2019, nearly six million men and boys have been educated on positive masculinity, respectful family relationships and non-violent conflict resolution under Spotlight Initiative.
4. Women and girls' rights are under attack and require a coordinated defense
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"Thirty years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, incredible progress has been made... but the backlash to that progress is of a nature that we've never seen before," said Mr. Rai. "It is also manifesting itself as an attack on the multilateral system. There is a crisis of multilateralism and a concerted effort by both state and non-state actors to dismantle the multilateral system that promotes the [EVAWG] work that is happening."
"Resistance to this pushback will not happen if we are all working separately," he continued, reiterating the need for the UN, governments and civil society to work together.
Terry Dale Ince, a member of Spotlight Initiative's Global Reference Group, said it was essential to recognize this threat but also to understand that rights had been successfully defended and won in the past: "We cannot allow fear to stop us from doing what we know is right... This is not new. Maybe the younger generation was born into a time when all of these gains had already been acquired," she said, "we thought that was how it would always be. But we need to get over that stupor. We are not shocked anymore. We have to fight back. Continue to be who you are and do not allow the noise to change who you are."
