Violence Against Women and Girls in Public Spaces in Maputo City: The Case of the Luis Cabral Neighbourhood

This project is a proposal to decrease violence against women and girls, a prominent problem in Mozambique. It focuses mainly on violence that occurs in public spaces, and emphasizes the fact that violence against women and girls is invisible in national laws and is not being addressed by the majority of Civil Society Organizations that work on women´s rights issues. This “invisibility” does not allow for the identification of specific measures to solve this problem. Therefore the project is innovative as it intends to produce results to change the context on the ground trough a project in one of Maputo city’s neighbourhood – Luis Cabral. A multi-sector partnership with a range of crucial stakeholders, such as the police, justice sector, social action groups, the health sector, municipal authorities, local communities, women and girls’ grassroots organizations, media and the private sector, will be key actors in achieving good results. The project will challenge social and cultural norms based in patriarchal values that discriminate against women and girls while reinforcing male superiority. Considering the capacity of international programmes and projects, it intends to identify the local roots of the problem and address them, with a strong participation of the local community, including women, girls, men and boys. Male engagement in the project will be an important strategy to change discriminatory values and beliefs in order to promote effective behavioural changes and achieve the desired social changes. Based on this initial experience, the project intends in the long term to spread to other neighbourhoods in Maputo city, and other provinces in Mozambique that are experiencing similar problems.