Can putting money in women’s pockets help prevent gender based violence?

 

 

As the mother of a precocious five-year-old girl, who will eventually (surprise) grow into a woman, one of the things that keeps me awake at night is me asking myself how I can empower her to hold her own in this world. A world where, increasingly, women’s rights are being rolled back, and they face  mounting pressures at work and in their personal lives.

 One of the things I have been thinking about is just how pervasive gender based violence is. And the fact that progress in addressing it still remains slow. One in three women have experienced GBV in their lifetime by an intimate partner.  Women also experience sexual harassment in public spaces and at work, early, forced child marriage, female genital mutilation and cyberbullying.

  Gender-Based Violence is the most extreme manifestation of gender inequality. It affects not just the well-being and productivity of individual survivors but of families and communities and, often, across generations.

 Women living in poverty, those who are un-employed and those dependent on social benefits are most vulnerable to gender-based violence, according to this UNDP study.

 

And yet, having access to money and other resources doesn’t always protect women. Take the case of deceased Ugandan athlete Rebecca Cheptegei.   In 2024, days after being doused in petrol and set on fire by a former boyfriend she passed away, a month or so after competing in the Summer Olympics in Paris. 

 Authorities in Kenya, where Cheptegei lived and trained, said she and her ex-partner had been fighting over a piece of land.

 It’s somewhat of a paradox.

 While economic empowerment can enable women to leave an abusive relationship it can also be a risk factor for intimate partner violence.

 A survey of 3,538 households explored this  complex relationship.

  On the one hand, employment and women’s economic empowerment can be a pathway to support women to leave violent relationships. On the other hand, women with higher incomes than their partners are also significantly more likely to experience partner violence.

  So does it still make sense to use financial empowerment as a means to help end GBV?

 Yes!

 For instance, according to the World Bank cash transfers to women, even when not designed with the aim of preventing violence, do reduce violence against women. Cash transfers can help reduce GBV by reducing poverty and food insecurity, thereby limiting the potential for conflict in households. Cash transfers empower women, increase their social capital and status in communities; and boost their self-esteem, self-efficacy, and support networks.

 Overall, when women’s earnings increase, other areas of their lives also improve. They  can afford health care and pay for their children’s school fees, and they are more likely to play a leadership role in their communities, research shows. Economic dependence then becomes less likely to be a factor for women to stay in abusive relationships.

 Women’s economic empowerment is therefore a cornerstone in the drive to protect women and girls from GBV.

How then can we empower women financially?

 How can I support my daughter as she grows grows up, to become financially empowered, and stand a better chance of protecting herself from violence?

The first step is to support efforts to improve women’s financial literacy. Financial literacy is the ability to understand and effectively apply various financial skills—including include personal finance, budgeting, saving, and investing— to our lives. The more financially literate women are, the more opportunities they have to build wealth and set themselves up for success over the long term. Financial literacy can help set women  on the path to financial independence. And the earlier we start, the better.

 For me this starts with teaching my five-year-old the significance of saving, putting her “two monies” as she calls it, away in her piggy bank. We’ll build on from that progressively, to include lessons on investing and financial independence.

According to UN Women, at a macro level it’s important to connect women with financial resources, access to land, information, and to jobs. When women thrive in the world of work, they are better positioned to exercise their agency and realize their rights.

For me this boils down to ensuring my daughter, at the very least, gets an education.

In addition, I will do my best to teach her that there is no field of study or work that is not open to her simply because she is a girl.  I will do my best to give her an education that makes her mindful of her immediate community while also staying   curious about her world; a global citizen who is not limited in her thinking about her place in the world.

 

And, underlying all these efforts, is the need to support women to confront unjust patriarchal systems that perpetuate gender inequality and discriminatory social norms, and stand in the way of women enjoying their human rights.

 

For mothers like myself, this involves setting examples for our daughters to shape the way they think about gender, respect, and human rights. We need to start conversations about gender roles with girls from an early age, and help them challenge the traditional roles assigned to men and women which give rise to gender based violence and other forms of abuse.

 

I know I cannot fully protect her from GBV and all the other injustices that may come her way because she is a woman. But I hope I can at least build a foundation that my daughter can build on to fight for her rights and the rights of other women and girls.

By Martha Songa