Influencing Policy

WOMANKIND's partners across Ethiopia are working to change attitudes and pushing for new laws to protect girls and women from female genital mutilation (FGM).

In October 2004 almost 100,000 people gathered in Ethiopia supporting the abolition of female circumcision and calling for this harmful traditional practice to be stopped. This included 20,000 young women who pledged to remain uncut accompanied by 200 married couples with uncut brides, school children, HIV/AIDS community workers, religious leaders, village elders and Ethiopian Government representatives. International charity and women's health workers also represented the international community.

This internationally sponsored event would previously have been unthinkable but through the work of WOMANKIND's partners and other organisations a huge change in attitude has been brought. And in January 2005 a new law came into force which bans FGM. We are now taking this news to every corner of Ethiopia so all girls and women know there is a law to protect them and how to use it if they need to.

WOMANKIND Worldwide believes that laws and policies intended to regulate all our lives should be scrutinised to ensure they protect women and support their efforts to improve life.

This is particularly true when decision-makers, and the people who put policy into practice, like the police, are often men. Put simply, if women’s voices are not part of the picture, then policy and practice risk overlooking women’s priorities, experiences and rights – even inadvertently.

Taking women’s views to decision makers

WOMANKIND Worldwide takes women’s grass-roots experiences and viewpoints to national and international decision makers, ensuring that women’s real lives are included in political discussions far removed from the shanty-town or village well.

For example, we worked together with Amnesty International and Oxfam to bring Afghan women’s wishes to the UK government’s attention after the fall of the Taliban. Our combined pressure also helped to ensure the new Constitution gave women the same legal rights as men.

Our mandate comes from real women

Is what you are doing aiding, overlooking or even impeding women? And how do you know? These are two questions we encourage policy-makers and grant-givers, in the UK and in developing countries to ask themselves. We use insight drawn from the lives and views of the women we work with to help them answer these questions, and to take new issues to them.

For example, in Ethiopia, we helped young women meet with MPs to tell them first-hand about the harmful effects of female genital mutilation, marriage by abduction and rape on their lives. They have now achieved many changes in the law.

Monitoring, evaluation and sharing

All the projects we fund are carefully monitored and evaluated, and we are eager for others to take what they can from our experiences. We produce reports and publications that show what we have learnt, and share them with others. And we bring together our partners from different countries to share ideas and best practice. In this way, for example, a proven approach to help Nicaraguan women tackle domestic violence can be replicated by an NGO in South Africa – and can be used to persuade government purse-holders to invest in it.

More about our approach to influencing policy >>