Urgent Action Fund
COVAW implemented a six months project on Leveraging Media to Enhance Protection and Women’s Rights during 2022 General Elections in Kenya.
The objectives of the project were: To disseminate the key findings from the COVAW access to justice study on legal and administrative bottlenecks to effective and efficient delivery of service for survivors of SGBV in Kenya, to prevent, mitigate and enhance SGBV response during 2022 general elections and to leverage on the media in highlighting SGBV cases during the election period.
Below are some of the key achievements
- The community dialogue forums acted as a knowledge hub for the 538 community members in the informal settlements. The community members were not well versed with knowledge on SGBV and the reporting procedure. The community members were able to learn about evidence collection and preservation which they were not aware about before. They indicated that in many instances they were not able to present evidence to the police during reporting since they were not aware of how they should preserve the evidence after incidents of SGBV.
- There is enhanced collaboration between the paralegals and journalists has led to increased coverage of SGBV cases in the mainstream media.
- The increased awareness on GBV prevention and response during the electioneering period led to a decrease in the number of SGBV cases reported through COVAW GBV Helpline. COVAW only received 3 elections related SGBV cases from female aspirants. COVAW offered legal advice and linked the survivors to other services including shelter and psychosocial support.
