School-related gender-based violence

• Injuries, including bruises, burns, fractures, gun wounds and stabbings
• Lacerations and abrasions
• Disability
• Genital-urinary symptoms
• Unwanted pregnancy
• STIs including HIV
• Eating disorders
• Substance misuse
• Risky sexual behaviour[10]

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Anger or hostility
• Low self-esteem
• Suicide ideation, attempts and actual suicide
• Self-harm
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Shame
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Dissociation
• Loss of memory[10]

• Lack of concentration
• Inability to study
• Falling grades
• Disruption in class
• Non-school attendance
• Dropping out of school[10]

Reporting on SRGBV situations around the world has become especially difficult since social and cultural norms do not promote this practice. Moreover, implicitly they discourage it. Many actors from society including teachers; school directors and policy-makers still avoid talking to children openly about gender; violence and sex. They fear promoting sensitive materials to children because of the taboo present in society. Work, time and patience are required to overcome set-ideas promoted by parents within their communities. It is necessary to start real and honest dialogues with children in order to create guaranty real and long-lasting results.[1]

Gender inequalities refer to the devaluation and discrimination of women an girls in a society. This results on giving more power to men and boys, while demeaning women and girls. For instance, a study in Ethiopia highlighted that even though 93 per cent of male students recognized violence against girls to be illegal, about 33 per cent thought it is acceptable for male students to have what they want, and appeal to their charm or force to get. 21 per cent recognized behaving this way.[11][1]

Capacity constraints in education systems, are also responsible for slowing down the progress related to preventing SRGBV. One of the most important challenges is the training of teachers with the tools and sensitivity to teach curriculum against violence and promote gender equality. In order for real change to happen, it is necessary to introduce these new tools slowly, analyzing who is the best to communicate these elements and what skills and knowledge are needed. What's more, having enough resources will be very important to implement change.[1]

Another factor that limits the progress related to stopping SRGBV is weak coordination and unreliable monitoring mechanisms. These render difficult the collaboration between ministries of education, police, social services, child protection and more. This is important because if this collaboration is not fluent, it will be difficult to stop SRGBV. A renewal in the organization's cultural landscape will be needed to overcome challenges, including bureaucracy that disrupts the flow of knowledge sharing.[1]

Limited access to quality services, including child protection a social services among others (often absent) are due to the quality of services. This particularly concerns fragile communities.[1]

In the majority of countries, there is currently no legislation that protects children from violence at school, meaning not much can be done when it happens. However, it is the case that some countries have recently introduced legislations specifically for schools. This said, legislation related aspects have become a real challenge. As to stop SRGBV, perpetrators must be punished.[1]

Emerging, but limited, evidence base on what works, although this is an area that is receiving increasing attention. The few evaluations of SRGBV interventions that currently exist vary greatly in methodology, rigour, scale and scope. This makes it difficult to identify best practice and draw conclusions about effective strategies that can be transferred to other settings. There is also a growing body of promising practices and existing knowledge that has not yet been fully documented.[1]

As previously mentioned, many challenges slow down the reporting and impact on the quality of providing reliable data regarding certain types of violence. This implies data is incomplete in contexts such as sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and disability among others. This is important as all of these contexts are important to fight against SRGBV. According to a recent study by USAID, to tackle SRGBV it is necessary to rely on large-scale studies which include findings that can be compared across countries; studies showing different forms of SRGBV, connections between behavior change and a discrepancy between research and practice. It is necessary to invest in strong data management system tools which divide data and will make it easier for people to analyze it.[10][1]

Governments should demonstrate leadership at the national level by:

• developing and implementing laws to protect children from violence, ensuring accountability and treating all children equally
• adopting a comprehensive, multisectoral national policy and action plan to prevent and respond to SRGBV
• strengthening connections between education and child protection policies, procedures and systems
• reforming the education system for an enhanced and holistic response.[1]

In order to render schools safer, it is important to adopt whole-school approaches that will create better environments for children. Also different types of stakeholders at the school level should become engaged at local communities and government. There are three specific strategies:

• creating safe and welcoming spaces
• ensuring governing bodies and school management send strong messages that SRGBV is not acceptable and is taken seriously
• developing and implementing codes of conduct.[1]

At the education sector level, students should be taught in a certain way and certain topics. In order to prevent SRGBV, it is important to:

• curriculum approaches that prevent violence and promote gender equality
• training education staff to give them the tools to prevent and respond to SRGBV
• safe spaces where co-curricular interventions can be a useful entry point for addressing SRGBV.[1]

• When SRGBV does occur, there should be clear, safe and accessible procedures and mechanisms in place for reporting incidents, assisting victims and referring cases to the appropriate authorities. Key strategies include:
• providing easily accessible, child-sensitive and confidential reporting mechanisms
• providing counseling and support
• referral to law enforcement and healthcare services.[1]

SRGBV being a very complex issue, it is necessary to involve many and several types of stakeholders. Thus it is about creating partnerships in order to tackle SRGBV:

• coordination/collaboration between key ministries as well as at the district level
• partnerships with teachers’ unions
• participation of girls and boys
• working with families and the wider communities
• engaging civil society organizations.[1]

• National action should be informed by research and data on SRGBV, including:
• formative research on SRGBV to inform policy and programme development
• comprehensive national data collection systems
• indicators to track progress
• evaluations to assess impact.[1]