Protecting Communities in the DRC: Understanding Gender Dynamics and Empowering Women and Men

This 15-page report discusses the experience of Oxfam’s protection programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is designed to strengthen the ability of communities to advocate for their rights, including the right to protection from violence and exploitation. According to the report, evaluation of the programme’s impact shows that in a situation where so many people’s rights are abused and violated, empowering women often means including and empowering men in humanitarian response as well. It is also vital to take a sophisticated, context specific approach to gender and women's rights, considering short-term, immediate needs, and longer-term strategic needs together.

According to the report, despite the government approving a progressive sexual violence law in 2006 that includes a broad definition of sexual and gender-based violence, women and men are frequently subject to sexual violence. Women face many inequalities in the DRC. They play a very limited role in public life and constantly confront deep-seated attitudes and beliefs that perpetuate discrimination and gender-based violence. The programme in the DRC aims to strengthen the capacity of communities at risk to advocate for their rights and for protection from violence and exploitation, and to improve survivors' access to follow-up care and support (referral). The field programme is combined with international advocacy and campaigning to ensure that civilians’ voices are heard, and to hold those in power to account. In 2006–7, Oxfam made a strategic commitment to address protection issues more explicitly and systematically in its humanitarian programming in the DRC. It began by building the capacity of field teams, developing practical tools for safe programming, and undertaking protection surveys in the communities where Oxfam GB was already working.

Protection committees are central to the programme, and as of mid-2012, 56 committees had been set up. They respond to emergency needs in their communities but also link humanitarian needs to longer-term development, supporting state actors and others with protection obligations – such as armed groups – to fulfil their obligations. Because of the vast distances and poor road infrastructure, to ensure that the programme reaches a broad geographical area, community outreach workers (agents du changement) or Change Agents are also recruited, usually 10 men and 10 women in each area. The structure of the programme, centred on the protection committee, is designed to support women to prioritise their own issues (through the women’s forums) without excluding men and their needs, and while ensuring that the programme can reach locations that are difficult to access. In some areas, very few women were interested in taking part in the protection committees because, culturally, they are not permitted to stand up and speak in front of a man. In these areas, the women’s forum plays an important role as a space that is more accessible and open to them: this is where women can talk freely among other women and with someone from the outside the community.

Men and women involved in the protection programme jointly decide what they would like to focus on. An important goal of the programme is to help people affected by violence and abuse to access information and services that can help them. Staff provide information on abuses such as forced labour and unlawful detention, and promote informed self-referral to medical, psychosocial and, occasionally, legal services. The model of referral does not solely focus on sexual violence, unlike many other projects in the DRC, but provides support to men, women, boys and girls affected by violence and abuse, whether rape, torture, beatings, or other human rights violations.

Evidence suggests that, as taboos are gradually broken down, this may lead to more reporting of rape and other sexual violence. Despite the difficulty in assessing impact, the report states that an internal evaluation in 2012 found a reduction in sexual violence in 6 of the 11 communities surveyed. In many locations, committee members and other members of the community reported that the number of rapes had gone down. Domestic violence had reduced in six communities and early marriage in two, while in eight communities, gender relationships were felt to be more equal. Four communities reported an increase in girls’ and women’s enrolment in education. In one area, committee members carried out an awareness-raising campaign that resulted in a reduction in instances of men rejecting their wives because they had been raped, and greater understanding of the need for urgent medical care. In one community, men reported providing shelter for displaced women who had been raped and subsequently abandoned by their husbands.

During research, men and women in eastern DRC reported that one of the key benefits they have gained from taking part in training organised by the programme is that they met different people. The social capital that is created during the training will last beyond the programme’s lifetime. Many of the respondents in the May 2012 evaluation also cited an improvement in relations with local authorities as one of the programme’s most significant achievements. Citizens and duty-bearers both reported this. According to the report, the programme’s achievements were rooted in the following factors:

• Addressing women and men’s rights as equally important.
• Providing a space (the protection committee) for women and men’s concerns to be voiced, that promotes shared ownership, and where issues identified by men and women are understood holistically in terms of their wider impact on the community.
• Acknowledging the abuses and violence perpetrated against men as well as women, their specific needs for care and support, and the positive role they play in supporting and representing their communities.
• Establishing a strong women’s forum that provides a safe space for women to discuss problems, and where they can gain confidence in a supportive environment.
• Promoting discussion about how rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence affect whole communities.
• Developing a code of conduct for each committee and thereby creating a safe space for men and women to discuss gender issues together.
• Promoting opportunities for men and women to have better access to local authorities – separately and together.
• The community-led nature of the programme allows men and women to address immediate, short-term protection needs as a priority, but also longer-term barriers to women’s rights and without these being seen as a threat to men.
• Celebrating 'small victories' that are, after all, significant and life-changing for the individual (or individuals) involved.

The report concludes that in conflict settings, Oxfam’s aim of ‘putting poor women’s rights at the heart of all we do’ means taking a sophisticated, intelligent and context-specific approach to gender and women’s rights. Adopting a simplistic attitude to women’s participation without understanding complex local dynamics and the impact of the proposed intervention on women and men’s identity risks doing more harm than good, or creating programmes with inevitably unsustainable impacts. In a situation where so many people's rights are being abused and violated, empowering women in ways that are safe and sustainable often requires including and empowering men in the response too. Short-term and long-term needs must be considered together, and different strategies adopted to achieve the strongest overall result. Social change such as improving gender relations takes time, and the experience of Oxfam’s protection programme in the DRC shows that it is important to plan stages for relationship-building that leads to attitudinal change.