This is very much aligned with ILO C190 where V&H including GBVH is an OSH issue. I think it also provides an easier entry point to discuss sensitive topics like GBVH with factories.
Question 3: RISE supports the idea of bringing various stakeholders together to co-create, exchange learnings, and examine ways to meaningfully progress action on GBVH. For example, the RISE team engages with various stakeholders to conduct its market transformation work which focuses on providing a safe space for brands, suppliers, and workers representatives to reflect on business practices, and compliance approaches, and define mutually agreed strategies for prevention and remediation of GBVH.
As another example, in 2022, RISE Respect commissioned an external mapping to review more than 16 global GBVH interventions globally that have been implemented through different organizations to prevent and remediate GBVH in the garment industry. The mapping highlighted 3 areas in need of collaborative action to achieve systemic change in GBVH.
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the need to address GBVH’s impact on brands’ business practices and counterproductive compliance approaches.
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the need to prioritize influencing social norms to enable GBVH and
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the need to promote the role of trade unions and social dialogue as essential elements for addressing GBVH.
Lastly, as I mentioned before, GBVH is a consequence of gender gaps and inequality. Evidence has shown that promoting and advancing women in the workplace, for example having more women supervisors, significantly reduces the risk of GBVH in the workplace. Supporting Women’s Economic Empowerment by enabling them to manage their own income and finances is also a key driver to prevent GBVH. The industry should work together to scale programs and initiatives that advance women in the workplace, build their financial health and resilience, and tackle directly GBVH in order for women to thrive in the world of work.
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The question that most companies ask is how deep should they go in managing this issue in their supply chain, when it can be huge! This is a major challenge
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Lots of things here actually but one I wanted to raise is working through partnerships. Nobody expects businesses to know everything. Bring organisations onboard who have the experience.
Time has flown and we are nearly done but please keep posting and sharing this chat will stay open on our website. Thank you so much for all participating. And please do keep your eyes on all our future events.
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Great question Halima! In the case of RISE programs, organizations financing the interventions differ. Sometimes, we have individual international buyers paying for programs in their supply chains. Other times, we have a co-investment between factories and brands. Lately, we have been exploring co-investing opportunities between several international buyers to avoid duplication and multiple impact. The other source of financing is international donors, like foundations. We usually do grant-based projects to test innovations, and then scale it up engaging the entire supply chain.
Its a wrap, THANKYOU ALL!
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We will produce an Insights paper based on these inputs, and share it with you all - so do keep adding any other thoughts. Alice
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Completely agree as they can influence the change we want to see or make sure policies are implemented.
Regarding impact, I will go back to one of my interventions today reinforcing that these programs need to be thought at different levels to ensure sustainability, as you very well mentioned. Of course, funding plays a role, but what really moves the needle is how much your program transforms the system or not. I want to reinforce that interventions shouldn’t be focusing only on training workers (this is important, but not enough). It is not just about the worker changing their behavior, is about systemic change including a commitment from brands, governments, suppliers, and international mechanisms to change and question their own practices.
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Agree with everything said so far. At Womaniko Transforming spaces one thing we recognise is that this is deep change work. Leaders and people need safe spaces to grapple; they should be supported by facilitators who can create such spaces and support change. Business expects to change by doing business as usual and perpetuating the practices they have come to trust. They need support and space to see that different practices can improve business imperatives. So our biggest lesson is that it takes time - success in the business, building evidence-based programmes, then encouraging other businesses through thought leadership. We still have a long way to go.
We have done some work with WW in South Africa. We setup a champion/peer support structure and found that reporting and referrals went from 0-over 60 within three month using the champion structures. Participant explained the lack of confidence in the EAP offering - inadequate expertise on GBV, limited sessions available and they really wanted someone to help them navigate from informal to formal mechanisms within the organisation. It should be noted that this champion structure, was supported by awareness, language and trust-building sessions with employees, and building awareness, language and trust-building for middle to top leadership onsite.
Culture is built through shared awareness, shared knowledge and trust-building. We found that once employees had the language, trusted that leadership is committed to act, and trusted their peers to stand with them - they began to speak up and challenge unacceptable behaviour.
There needs to be a concerted effort to use public private partnerships to address the issue of GBV. Often Civil society organizations have the tools and the skills to support private sector, however there is lack of collaboration and limited opportunities to envision a partnership that is not just related to donor funding relationship but actually a technical partnership that serves to share skills, knowledge, best practices including the lessons from failed interventions. The relationship is often prejudiced by this veil of Donor and civil society partner that does not look beyond this scope.
CSVR is currently implementing community-led responses to GBV in 49 communities across 9 provinces through a partnership with a corporate organization.
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Setting the standard is not enough to help leaders take on this different approach. Leaders need training and coaching to embrace their role in preventing gender-based violence at work.
totally agree. We have found that leaders transform if they are healed through our Wounded Leadership Project
This aligns very much with our experience at Womaniko Transforming Spaces. The gender norms work did a lot to move from a simply punitive approach to supporting behavioural change while balancing remediation. Working in one environment helped to make links to the needs in other environments and supply chain.
Yes the Champions for Change Coalition in Australia also positions the issues as a health, safety and risk issue.
Question 3: We know that gender inequality is at the heart of gender based violence. We need to be brave to have conversations in our families, communities and workplaces about the ways that gender inequality plays out and what we can do about it.
Gender based violence is about the interactions between people as well. We need to be mindful of how we have every day conversations with one another - not perpetuating stereotypes or attitudes that enable violence to occur
We need to speak up. When we see or hear behaviour or comments that suggest violence or sexism.
We need to define gender roles that are healthy for everyone. Toxic gender roles hurt men and women equally as well as contributing to perpetuating gender-based violence.
We need to make real commitments – invest money, time, people – so that there are genuine resources available within businesses.
Businesses can work together and take supply chain approaches. We developed guidelines for the garment industry, working with the ILO, that looked at how to prevent and respond to harassment across the garment supply chain. Systemic issues can benefit from systemic responses like this! https://www.care.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Guidelines-Apparel-Industry-Responses-to-Violence-and-Harrassment-in-the-Workplace.pdf
We need to support the services that support victim/survivors of gender based violence. The needs are significant and they are usually under-resourced.
Love the way this is embedded in to the actual work of Avon and based on research. Would be interested in how integrating the historical ways that make-up has been the site for expression and freedom; at the same time as make-up has historically been site for protecting and covering abuse - in other words its complex. And how can social campaigns open up discussions on the complexity?