By Ramatoulie Jawo
Women in Liberation and Leadership (WILL) has launched the shadow report it has written on the sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) component in the TRRC final report.
The event took place at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Centre in Bijilo in the West Coast Region on Wednesday.
The report aims to fill in gaps in the truth finding process of the TRRC, seek the need to support women beyond the TRRC and to shed light on some of the structural barriers that contribute to SGBV and gender inequality.
According to the report, despite the effort, many victims in the rural area, particularly women did not give accounts of the violation they suffered, as the Gambia is a closely knitted community and rural women particularly those who were subjugated to SGBV could not have been easily identified and shamed, if they were to take part in open TRRC hearing.
Moreover, the report further showed that similar to the TRRC, WILL’s activities found that Jammeh’s regime was characterised by severe violations towards women and girls; including SGBV, either directly and indirectly.
The report concluded that the prevalence of SGBV in The Gambia is rooted in the patriarchal system, socio-cultural norms and practices, including traditional ones, puts women and girls more vulnerable to SGBV.
It added that Jammeh’s era was characterized by widespread SGBV there were existing factors that made this easy; adding that as a country more efforts need to be put in place to address the root causes of violence against women.
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