Responding to Gender-Based Violence Victim Women and Girls Quest for One Stop Service Center in Hawassa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Gender-based violence against women and girls is a prevalent human rights issue in Hawassa City, Ethiopia. Although the women and girls who are victims of violence are in need of multiple kinds of support as a result of the physical, psychological, economic, and sexual harm they sustain, the lack of an integrated response system to meet these multiple needs  has caused the life journey of the victims to be highly at stake questing for human right based intervention.

Although different governmental structures are providing different services to the community in the city, they are not properly and adequately responding to the needs of the victims. Again, victims' efforts to seek services from the legal system, health centers, and psychologists are hampered by the gender norm, stigmatization, fear, lack of awareness,  retraumatization risk, distance, and cost of services. Hence, as part of the remedy to this multifaceted problem, this project proposes the establishment of a one-stop service center
(OSSC). 

The goal of the project is to enhance gender-based violence response system and strive to end VAWG in Hawassa City. The project aims to enable the victims to easily access an integrated professional medical, legal, and psychological free services, including economic support. Structurally, the project proposes OSSC with research, training, and advocacy organs that include a victims-led activism network.

Methodologically the project adheres to a multisectoral approach and ecological frameworks. Accordingly, stakeholders that can potentially contribute for the establishment of the center are purposely selected considering their human and financial resources. In this regard, the involvement of Hawassa University will make the project new as it would be the first university based OSSC.

The project will follow human rights, victims-centered, and community-based approaches with the aim to shape the OSSC functions in line with human rights standards. It also engages community members to be able to effectively fight against the normalization of GBV against women and girls and promote a gender transformative approach. In doing so, the project has incorporated various national and international OSSC experiences. Therefore, the project will have greater importance in rehabilitating the victims, reintegrating them into the productive section of society, and changing the discriminatory gender norms in the city as well.