NGO
Experiences : Fighting Violence against Wome
Abstract
of Presentation at Workshop I Session : Violence against Women
6 November 2006
WONCA Asia Pacific Regional Conference
Efforts to combat violence against women have been made by different
organizations in both the public and the private sectors in Thailand
in the past 20 years. The women NGOs working on violence for the
past decade have been active in finding measures in providing gender
sensitive assistance to women. Coalition among NGOs to fight against
violence on women has been formed since 1996. They have jointly
worked together in campaigns on all issues relating to violence
against women, whether it be protesting the decisions made in the
judicial process, holding seminars and meetings, awareness raising
activities as well as campaigning for legislative and attitude changes.
The Association for the Promotion of the Status for Women (APSW),
a charitable organization mandated to address violence against women
problems has provided shelter and fully comprehensive services for
women and children confronting physical, psychological and sexual
abuses, unwanted pregnancies, abandonment including HIV/AIDS. The
past 25 years have seen over 50,000 women and children receiving
assistance from APSW and at present, on any single day, there are
about 120 women and children sheltered at our Emergency Home.
APSW has in the past several years, launched many
rehabilitative as well as preventive activities. It has opened up
a one stop service center for rape victims (Kanitnaree Center),
fully equipped with medical examination and video-recorded investigation
facilities to provide gender-sensitive and comprehensive services
assistance.
A few projects to raise an awareness on domestic violence and to
strengthen community capacity have been launched. In addition, a
series of pilot workshops for managers of about 200 Sub-district
organizations in different parts of the country were conducted in
2004 to encourage them to pay a greater attention within their subdistrict
to take care of family violence.
Despite
these seemingly recognized concerns on violence, commitment has
not yet been adequate. One of the reasons that family violence has
been treated as a less important issue particularly with government
decision-makers, is mainly the result of lack of reliable documentation
of violent incidents. Each of the agencies dealing with violence
both in the public and the private sectors has its own record but
those records and information have not been compiled in such a way
that nation-wide statistics could be made available for highlighting
the severity of the problem.
The
Gender and Development Research Institute or GDRI, the research
arm of the Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women
has pushed the government in the setting up the data base. It has
thus been assigned by the Ministry of Social Development and Human
Security to serve as the focal agency, at the initial stage, in
setting up a systematic data base and providing national statistics.
Since January 2006, the data base has started compiling the records
of different agencies in both the public and private sectors. Prevalence
statistics is thus accessible on the Ministry’s and GDRI website
on a biannually basis. It is believed that the available statistics
should be invaluable for advocacy and in tackling with gender-based
violence.
Although the issue of violence has received a wider attention, there
is a gap of knowledge and the measures and strategies that have
been developed thus far may still be inadequate. Continued effort
has to be made. The very first and foremost to be tackled is the
change in the public attitudes from regarding the issue of violence
particularly domestic violence as a private to a public issue and
a concern for all.
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