Eleven representatives of women-led civil society organizations members of the Jordan National NGOs Forum (JONAF) participated in the digital preparatory session held by The Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD) to discuss the action plan for the next report on gender-based violence through the lens of domestic violence. This session came within the research activities to launch the third report within “Strengthening the capacity of women-led civil society organizations in evidence-based advocacy within the National Women, Security and Peace Agenda” project, which is implemented in partnership with UN Women and funded by the Governments of Canada, Finland, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
The project aims to explore and research key themes that address different types of women’s vulnerabilities after the COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan identified through a rapid assessment process held at the national level, with the aim of promoting awareness about these critical issues and respond to them. These topics include economic insecurity, social and welfare impacts on women, increased rates of gender-based violence within the household, and strengthening women’s leadership capacities in the process of recovery from the effects of the crisis.
The session discussed the global and local concept of violence against women and domestic violence including the latest national statistics on the rates of domestic violence and its various types in Jordan in recent years, as well as recent rates during the Covid-19 pandemic in addition to reviewing cases of general crimes and cybercrime and domestic violence crimes.
The session concluded with the participants’ agreement on the most important issues that should be focused on with regard to domestic violence against women. These issues according to women represent a priority in their societies and will shed light on the various internal and external factors and motives that result in violence against women.
During Project, members of JONAF, contributed to producing several reports about women, the first report entitled “Through Women Eyes: The Social and Economic Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Women in Jordan One Year After the Crisis”, the second report entitled “The Importance of Care Work: The Value of Women’s Care Work in Jordan”, and now ARDD with its partners from the JONAF is completing work on the third report, which aims to produce a baseline study to assess the extent of gender-based violence against women in the family environment after the COVID-19, in order to formulate recommendations and strategies for programs and interventions at the community and national levels.
The project works to strengthen the capacity, research, and advocacy of women-led associations to identify and understand weaknesses and fragility, by developing local knowledge of these issues and exchanging experiences among JONAF members participating in the project, in addition to exploring ways to address them and developing programs and practices of associations in the response, while the research for each report aims to build specific action research and enhance the skills of local civil society institutions in advocacy for the issues investigated.
JONAF members participating in the project made major contributions in building and implementing the action research, providing researchers with continuous feedback, and discussing the final conclusions. In addition to carrying out many research activities with the local community, experts, and relationships, using quantitative and qualitative research tools, which achieves the project’s goal of evidence-based advocacy, as well as the exchange of experiences and best practices in data collection and information management among JONAF members.
