Gender-based violence is an enormously complex global problem rooted in cultural, social and political norms and structures which make it geography-dependent and thus very hard to address and make progress at. However, as Johanna Förberg, gender-based violence advisor with the Swedish women rights organisation Kvinna till Kvinna maintains, change might be slow to come but it is nonetheless possible and we should honour the achievements of local and international communities to protect women’s rights by pushing for proper legislation, political engagement and change of culture. 

With the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted in 1993 at the World Conference on Human Rights, United Nation’s General Assembly recognised violence against women as a human rights violation. The Declaration acknowledged that “violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women”.

Two years later, eliminating gender-based violence became one of the 12 priority areas of the Beijing Platform for Action. Since then, numerous international and national conventions and initiatives have outlined instruments and approaches to end various forms of physical and psychological atrocities against women around the world: rape, domestic violence, sexual slavery, female genital mutilation, child marriage, physical abuse.

Although progress has been made, violence against women remains rooted in socio-political norms which are hard to alter and which bear devastating ramifications for their victims, like social ostracism, psychological trauma and economic deprivation. Addressing gender-based violence is particularly challenging in politically and economically unstable countries where governments are rather upholding than dismantling cultural norms and openly disengage from investing resources in problems concerning women’s position and integrity in their societies. 

That is one reason why women rights organisations have been instrumental in advocating for the implementation of formally adopted frameworks to address violence against women, especially in times of armed conflicts and social disruptions like the one we are currently going through. Activists and international foundations have also provided invaluable humanitarian aid and social and psychological support to affected women, and their efforts shouldn’t go unacknowledged. 

Kvinna till Kvinna is one of the largest international women rights organisations. It is headquartered in Sweden and originated in 1993 as a protest against sexual abuse of women in the Balkan wars at the time. Today the organisation operates in more than 20 countries affected by war and conflicts in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South Caucasus, and supports a partnership network of about 150 women rights organisations. 

Kvinna till Kvinna focuses on four key areas pertaining to women’s rights: gender-based violence, economic empowerment, peace and security and promoting women’s equal participation in society. The organisation, together with its partners, advocate for change in the women rights agenda on a national, regional and international level. They collaborate with the Swedish government, the EU, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the African Union and the United Nations to influence policy-making, educate both men and women on gender equality questions, and provide help to women and girls in conflict-ridden areas. 

In the following interview, Kvinna till Kvinna’s gender-based violence advisor Johanna Förberg talks about the organisation, the importance of raising public awareness, how their work with gender-based violence has been affected by the COVID crisis, and what issues still stand in the way to promote women and defend their rights. She is optimistic that positive change is possible and we should keep our goals to a high standard in order to make sustainable progress and improve women’s situation both in poor societies and in more developed countries, as well. 

JV: Johanna, thank you so much for meeting me for this interview to talk about gender-based violence. The first thing I want to ask you is to briefly introduce who you are and tell me what your work with Kvinna till Kvinna entails?

JF: Yes, thank you. My name is Johanna Förberg and I work as a gender-based violence advisor in our head office in Stockholm. Kvinna till Kvinna is an organisation that works in 20 conflict and post-conflict affected countries and contexts.We support almost 150 women’s rights organisations in those countries so we are quite a large women’s rights organisation at this point. My work consists of different parts and it also shifts so it’s hard to give a brief explanation of what I do. But part of my job is of course to provide support to my colleagues in the different offices because the majority of our partners address gender-based violence in one way or another and also to make sure that there is some sort of consistency in how we frame GBV among our colleagues. We do not define what our partners do, they do that themselves in terms of the problems and needs they want to address in their particular context but trying to make sure that there is consistency within the organisation as to how we work with GBV, so I provide some training and I am responsible for policies and I do a lot of quality assurance of applications and communications, reports, strategies, all sorts of internal work. Then I also do some external work, we have an International Training programme on GBV together with the Swedish Police in which I work part-time with as a coach. We currently work with Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova, and I work as a coach, we have a coaching part within the programme, I hold sessions and I recruit participants from Kosovo mainly, so that is my work in brief. 

JV: Kvinna till Kvinna works not only in Europe but also in the Middle East and Africa but is your work more focused on the Balkans and the Europe geography?

JF: No, but this International Training Programme is focused on the Balkans, in terms of being an advisor internally I work with the whole organisation, I work with colleagues in all the regions.

JV: I see. The organisation had a humble origin I would say, it started as an informal gathering to protest against mass rapes of women and girls in the Balkan conflicts during the 90s.

JF: Yes, exactly.

JV: It quickly grew and evolved into an international organisation: as you mentioned  you support around 20 countries and work with quite a huge network of partner organisations. When did you join, was it in the very beginning?

JF: No, I was very young when this initiative started but I do have a colleague who is one of the initiators. It was women’s rights and peace activists who gathered and they initiated it by sending packages to women, so-called “women’s packages”, which included for example sanitary items, underwear and soap and other things that were in shortage. I have been in and out of the organisation for a number of years, I started working in Bosnia in 2005. I was the country coordinator, or field representative as it was called at the time, for Bosnia for two years and then I worked in the head office as a coordinator for Kosovo and Bosnia. After that  I worked with different parts of the organisation as a consultant actually for several years. I came in and out, working with Syria, Ukraine, working on setting up programmes linked to when those conflicts started and then I came back in this role two years ago, in early 2018 as a GBV advisor. 

JV: What was your motivation to work on gender-based violence, the organisation in its entirety focuses on four key areas and GBV is one of them, I would say that it started out because of it.

JF: Gender-based violence is a massive human rights problem globally and particularly in societies that are afflicted by conflict or in post-war contexts, there is, apart from damaging social and cultural norms, a large problem with the institutional response to GBV, and the women’s organisations have played and continue to play an absolutely crucial role to protect and support women, and girls subjected to violence in its different forms filling this institutional gap. GBV affects women’s possibilities to participate and contribute to society and societal change and development. Like I said, the majority of our partners address GBV in one way or another, either through shelters or psychosocial support, legal aid or prevention so it sort of encompasses a very large part of the women’s rights agenda in order to be able to push it forward. When women aren’t able to participate in society and contribute with their full potential, it is very hard to shift the gender inequality and patriarchal structures, it is a matter of human rights, justice and democracy.

JV: I realise that it’s a very complex issue, and it’s been with us for quite some time and it’s location-dependent. There are a lot of national and international initiatives to put a stop to GBV and to uplift women’s rights but we still seem to have made insufficient progress and I’m wondering what are we doing wrong? Why do women continue to be a more vulnerable social group, especially in times of crises like COVID and armed conflicts, women still suffer much more and they are not equal members of society in a lot of places.

JF: No, exactly, we ask ourselves that all the time but you know, we live in a patriarchal world and that is the structure that we live in, it’s systemic gender inequality and when societies are stable, it is easier to some extent to progress with issues that address gender inequality and when you address issues that are linked to gender, it’s also linked to power. So it is a power struggle to some extent and very much so when it comes to GBV, there needs to be a shift in that and I think we are certainly making progress but there are still huge challenges and it’s way too slow. But if you look back historically, we started naming this properly in the 70s, and established concepts internationally in the 90s, that is not too long ago in the history of humankind and because it’s hard to highlight holding the line, all the hard work that women’s rights advocates do to maintaining the progress made so far, not falling back might not seem like progress is fast enough but the resistance to women’s rights is very, very hard. 

There is too much work for women’s rights organisations to just hold back against the backlash and this work is to a large extent invisible at the same time as it is extremely hard and dangerous work that is being done. So it’s addressing the structures and I think it’s a holistic approach which starts with how we raise our children but also the structures that we live in. It’s about having the right legislation in place and then you need it to be implemented, changing values and norms is a very slow work, there is a lot of reluctance, we know that. It’s a difficult change to create but it’s possible and it’s constantly ongoing and there are fantastic women’s rights defenders out there putting their life on the line on a daily basis in order to defend women’s rights around the world.

JV: Yes, definitely, we shouldn’t lose sight of that because as you say, progress has been made especially historically if we look back but a lot of women in poorer societies fight these fights every day and I’m not even sure they do fight them because especially when it comes to GBV and rape, there is a lot of stigma around this problem. From what I’m reading, also on your website, it’s really shocking to learn how these victims are not even understood by their families but are being blamed for that.

JF: Yes, but it’s all interlinked. I think if we look around us, in whichever society we live in, and in some parts these patriarchal norms and structures are stronger than in other, but in general, also in Sweden there is still a large stigma related to being beaten by your husband for example or having been subjected to rape, the stigma and the shame is also present there, it’s hard to talk about, it’s hard to raise with anyone and when you come in countries where the social control is even stronger, and even the institutions consider this a private matter, this is just enhanced. But it is everywhere, it’s the same structures everywhere, the same social norms, only to different degrees. I think to a large extent it is about awareness, we also reinforce these norms to some extent in our daily lives constantly, it doesn’t just pop up out of nowhere and it’s being supported by the structures and social norms in place.

JV: Yes, the sad thing is that in some societies there are even women who contribute to reinforcing these stigmas and biases.

JF: Of course, we are also part of the structures and a lot of it has to do with not being aware. But also how our societies are set up in terms of power and access and participation and what you’re willing to sacrifice, it takes a lot of courage to challenge social norms.

JV: What about the role of governments in these issues, do you think that this can be done on a policy level or it’s more about changing the culture in terms of awareness and the way we speak about these things?

JF: I think policies are absolutely necessary as well. I think it’s a multifront approach that is needed in order to address this. And governments are certainly...I mean having someone like the now hopefully soon former president of the most powerful nation in the world, talking about and behaving towards women the way he has, and globally limiting women’s possibility to decide over their own bodies, it makes a difference to a lot of people all over the world with consequences we cannot even foresee. Having role models high up in political positions is super important. We all have a responsibility to contribute to this. 

JV: Yes, I agree. Do you meet active resistance in your work from governments, in countries like DRC, Rwanda and Liberia for example?

JF: Absolutely. But it’s not mainly us as an organisation but our partners, they are constantly subjected to very high levels of resistance and even very dangerous ones, especially if you address issues that are related to women’s sexual and reproductive rights, but also GBV, there are certainly death threats and partners subjected to violence and what have you, it’s very dangerous in some contexts to work with this. The resistance is part of the daily work. 

JV: I’m wondering whether there is a light at the end of the tunnel in this case because it seems that, especially in vulnerable countries, governments are just ratifying international conventions but they are not actually actively doing anything to change the culture and they are themselves reinforcing the status quo.

JF: Yes, it’s hard to answer these questions in a simple way. But it’s really important that governments ratify conventions so that there are policies and legislations that can be advocated for. The first step is to have it on paper, if it  is on paper, you can push for it, right? The first step in that area is to get it down on paper, in terms of GBV for example, is to get proper legislation in place, the next step is to get that legislation implemented. Our partners do an awful lot of training for police and social services, healthcare providers and other actors within the justice system in order to implement the legislation properly. And when they start to implement the legislation properly to address for example issues like holding perpetrators accountable, you start also to see a shift, you can have the media highlight it and then you also need to train the media so that they highlight it in a proper manner, which is still not done, you know making sure the blame is placed on the perpetrator. So it’s absolutely not useless but in terms of having ratified convention and then living up to it, it’s part of the process and these are not fast processes for the most part. And it’s also dependent on who is in power. The women’s rights organisations play a crucial role in this.

JV: Yes, and also big organisations like the UN, of course play an important role in these discussions. You already mentioned the International Training Programme. Can you speak about other approaches of Kvinna till Kvinna to address GBV on the ground in terms of changing culture and perception. I read on your website that you have an initiative in Liberia, with one of your partners to educate men on these issues.

JF: Yes, as I said earlier we have over 140 partners and the majority of them address GBV in one way or another. But on a general level, we have partners that work on an individual level where they provide shelter for survivors, they provide psychosocial support and legal aid. On community level they work with awareness raising like I just said, they hold trainings for institutional actors that are involved in GBV, it can be also to advocate towards politicians but also training for the justice system in general, healthcare providers, schools, they go out in schools and talk to young people in terms of prevention, talking about inequality and GBV; and then on a national level they advocate for improvement in legislation like I just mentioned and on an international level it's about bringing voices to the table that are often unheard and also advocate for these improvements. In our case, working with the women peace and security agenda, pushing for the resolutions and having national action plans in place in the countries where we work. 

We work in so many different contexts but there’s a lot of public awareness raising going on as well, generally through different campaigns, 16 days of activism is a period where a lot of our partners are very active and have been for the past 25-27 years. That is how we work, there’s also an attempt to document and report, of course, writing reports to highlight and address these issues and then advocate in order to address impunity on social levels, related to conflicts this is very challenging, of course.

JV: Definitely. I mentioned earlier in the conversation that women are more ostracised during crises and I hear a lot about the fact that during COVID and crises like this, women are more vulnerable and they suffer the consequences in a harder way. What has happened in this past year, do you actually get more signals from women about being violated in any way?

JF: Yes, absolutely. There are perhaps two areas where we see a great increase first in terms of domestic violence, intimate partner violence and family violence there is certainly an incredible rise in the number of women looking for help and our partners are also working very hard to become accessible in areas where women normally would have come to a Women Centre for example and it’s just not possible anymore during lockdowns etc., to seek help this way so they have been very quick to find creative ways through digital means in order to reach out to women being stuck with perpetrators at home. We’ve also seen a spike not only in the violence but also the extent to how severe the violence has been. And also challenges reaching vulnerable groups who do not have access to mobile phones for example or don’t have their own mobile phones and can’t go out, then it’s very hard. Apart from domestic violence, we’ve also seen a rise in child marriages. Schools being closed, and a challenging economic situation, girls have been married off early because it’s considered no point for them to finish off school and that has also been a huge problem which you can see affects areas where the economic consequences of COVID have been very hard and where this practice was existing before but now has increased during this year.

JV: Yes, that’s horrible. I’m not sure whether you are actually aware about this but I’m curious, do you think that this phenomenon is appearing also in the so-called “developed societies” where women have more rights as opposed to women in countries in Africa and the Middle East for example. I’m trying to figure out whether this is mainly because of culture or because of the current social isolation which affects mental health and stability.

JF: We’ve seen a global rise in terms of intimate partner violence and domestic violence, no matter the society, especially where the lockdowns have been very severe. And that has been in most parts of the world except in Sweden and maybe some other exceptions, but also here with the restrictions having been less severe there has been a spike in reported violence, mainly for the women’s organisations. The reason is linked to the general gender inequality that exists compounded with the pressure and the stress related to this situation and being in closed spaces with the perpetrator; so I would say that has little to do with whether you’re in the developed world or however you want to phrase that, but of course in terms of having proper systems in place to respond, that might differ and the willingness to acknowledge that GBV is a crime and a human rights violation. Where there is a stronger tendency to look at it as a private matter or as part of the norm as well as lack of institutional response and trust in the authorities responsible. And where there is an increase in the use of for example alcohol, as a negative coping mechanism, that has also contributed.

JV: What are the main reasons, apart from the stigma and this attitude of the societies to condemn victims rather than help them, is there anything else that prevents women from coming forward? I cannot really imagine for a woman to tolerate this kind of behavior and even if it’s a woman who doesn’t have economic stability, she should be able to seek support from social services or other organisations but women are too afraid to do that in a lot of cases.

JF: I think it has little to do with a woman tolerating the violence. It also depends on the context and what kind of gender based violence you are referring to. When you are subjected to, for example intimate partner violence, in different forms, many women witness that the physical violence isn’t always the worst part, it’s the psychological violence, and in terms of looking at this, there is a process of normalisation. It’s not something that happens out of the blue, it’s usually been progressing over time, it is very much linked to power and coercive control in different forms, slowly breaking a woman down psychologically. If a woman has the financial means to leave, which is not common, it could also be linked to children, there could be custody issues, you don’t want to leave the man because you don't want to leave the children there. Or you don’t want to subject the children to being alone with the father if there’s a 50/50 custody so you’d rather stay so you can stay in control of what he does to the children. It’s very, very complex and hard to generalise. In terms of seeking support, unfortunately, within the institutional support, the staff also carry all these social norms and prejudices, we need to train for example police, which our partners do, to provide an adequate response to GBV cases. It takes a lot of courage to report that you have been subjected to violence, even more so if you are not sure you will be taken seriously, and that protection measures are in place. We also have to be better at detecting gender based violence, healthcare staff, for example have to be trained how to ask these questions and the focus should also shift to a large extent to the responsibility of the perpetrator rather than on the victim or the survivor of violence, not so much why she was subjected to it but why he subjected her to it.

JV: Yes, that’s a very good point to shift the attention to the perpetrator rather than the victim because in a lot of circumstances, perpetrators act with complete impunity, their actions just go unnoticed. 

JF: And another difficult issue our partners are working with related to impunity is conflict related sexual violence, where a lot of women encounter their perpetrators in their daily lives and it’s devastating for their physical and mental health, when the perpetrators are not held accountable and justice isn’t served.

JV: We are still in the middle of this COVID pandemic which is apparently making a lot of situations worse for societies at large but GBV is one of them as you mentioned. On the one hand, we cannot just abolish the lockdowns and our care for sustaining the members of society but then on the other hand, if these lockdowns result in spikes in violence, I’m wondering if there is a way to reconcile those two?

JF: That is the challenge, right? I think one important aspect of this would be for governments to prioritise support and shelter to women who are subjected to violence and set budgets apart for this specific purpose. There are so many emergency budgets being pushed to governments right now, in most of them there isn't a budget to handle and support women who are subjected to violence, so that is one part that needs to improve. There is general lack of gender perspective related to the handling of COVID and its consequences, which will have negative effect for the foreseeable furture. It’s very important that global leaders continue to acknowledge the spike in violence that has been a consequence of these lockdowns. That acknowledgement has been important but it means that some states are doing some work in this regard but certainly far from enough. It costs money, it needs to be acknowledged with funding, not just by saying it but also addressing it by budget allocations. The women’s organisations have the expertise in this but they need proper funding in order to manage the burden of this.

JV: I want to ask you about the roadblocks before eliminating or at least diminishing GBV, you already spoke about the culture norms and governments’ involvement and the financing aid aspect, are there any other issues standing in the way?

JF: Some of these things you can speak about generally because it looks similar in many places but it’s also context-specific, exactly what’s in place and what kind of actors you have there, what the education system looks like and what the media is like, all these other things that influence this on a daily basis. The financial aspect is key, women’s rights organisations need funding in order to be able to address all these issues. And I think they need to be acknowledged to a larger extent, as key actors in civil societies, it saves lives and will make for healthier and more sustainable societies. Providing examples of why this is beneficial for society to prevent also from an economic perspective, from the point of peace and prosperity is important.

JV: Clearly, there is a need for more governmental support and involvement in these issues, at least from a financial point of view so I’m wondering whether you have active connections with governments in the different locations through your partnership network to lobby for these changes to be made?

JF: Our partners constantly advocate for these changes in different ways. It doesn’t always mean that the door is open but we have been able to assist in providing open doors, that is also part of our work. Sweden is quite a large development aid donor that provides some leverage in terms of opening doors and pushing for certain issues but our partners are advocating for change everywhere every day. And sometimes risking everything.

JV: My last question is, from your personal point of view based on all these efforts that you as an individual and as an organisation, and all the rest of the women organisations are making, do you believe that we will manage to meet the gender equality sustainable development goal by 2030?

JF: I would like to perhaps frame it differently. I would say that because we know that this isn’t something that is written in stone, it is changing because we know it’s changeable even if it’s slow, there’s always hope for change but it requires a lot of work and there are amazing women human rights activists out there constantly, daily pushing for this change to happen. So I think the hope lies in the fact that change is possible, we know that for a fact. We spoke about social norms, social norms change so in terms of reaching the goals, the SDGs, I think we shouldn’t lower any bars, keep them high, that's what we need to aim for. This is hard and challenging but there are a lot of good people out there working for this change and there are a lot of people who are unaware that they are working against us so raising awareness of the consequences of not well thought through decisions based on biases that we carry, there is a lot of space for change, for progressive change for a better world for women and girls especially but in the long run for everyone.

JV: That’s nice, it’s always good to end on a positive note, and of course as you say, a lot of people are making efforts and risking their lives every day so we shouldn’t forget that. 

JF: Absolutely not, we need to honour their work, it’s very important, there’s a lot of invisible work being done.

JV: Definitely. Well, Johanna, thank you so much for talking to me about these issues and explaining a bit more about your work. Kvinna till Kvinna is an amazing organisation and the fact that you have existed for as long as you have and made progress testifies to this.

JF: My pleasure.