Almost a year since the government issued national guidelines for the community reintegration of Gender Based Violence (GBV) victims, stakeholders in the prevention and response of this crime say that there is a need to provide safe space guidelines to ensure that those who need support, care, and protection against their abusers are provided safe havens for as long as necessary.

The request was made by the director of Rwanda Women’s Network, Mary Balikungeri, during the launch of study findings on the assessment of women's safe spaces as avenues for GBV prevention and how these spaces can be managed and sustained.

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A safe space, also known as a GBV response shelter, is a permanent physical place where women or girls, can go at any time to feel safer physically and emotionally, tackle key GBV issues, and seek support from other women on how to collectively organise for change.

The first GVB response safe spaces were established by grassroots activists in England in the early 1970s to particularly serve women experiencing intimate partner violence. Since then, safe shelters have evolved, and today, not only do they offer survivors safe accommodation to escape the risk of actual harm, but they also offer a variety of other services.

Balikungeri said that the assessment of women's safe spaces was aimed at generating evidence around the quality of services offered to victims of GBV in Safe Spaces and in turn, informing how best GBV case management at the grassroots level can be improved.

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She pointed out that her organisation’s partnership with Isange One Stop Center had opened its eyes to a crucial gap beyond medical, legal, and psychological support.

"When Isange offers services to a victim, there is not much else that they can do after that. They are faced with the challenge of integrating this woman back into her community. A GBV response safe space would be a good opportunity for victims to really revisit, re-educate and re-energise themselves,” she said.

Balikungeri said that the focus is not only on providing safe accommodation where women and girls won’t be at risk of GBV, but to also offer a place where the survivors can recover and heal.

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The Superintendent of Police, Daniel Uwimana, shared testimonies of the challenges that they face in the process of dealing with GBV victims, especially those facing intimate partner violence.

He said that safe spaces need to urgently be established countrywide since their contribution to supporting victims has been obvious to all stakeholders.

"There are incidences where a woman is brutally attacked by her spouse and as we are still tracking him down, he is also on the other hand hunting her down. Isange can only keep her safe for about three days but after that, where is she supposed to go? That victim needs a space where she can first deal with all the physical and mental health issues that she is facing before she makes her next decision,” he said.

While Isange One-Stop Centers provide psychosocial, medical, and legal services to adult and child survivors of GBV, Safe Spaces provide basic legal education and awareness, legal representation, shelter, economic empowerment activities, DNA testing services, and accompaniment to other service providers.

Guidelines, safe spaces elsewhere

The suggested GBV safe space guidelines include the location of Safe Spaces, the requirements that the facilities must fulfil, the minimum number of staff and staffing capacity, programmes, and initiatives to be implemented in safe spaces, the management and implementation of safe spaces programmes and initiatives, collaboration and coordination with other service providers and stakeholders, among others.

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There are 44 Isange One Stop Centers spread across Rwanda. While they have been commended for providing support to GBV victims, there are some services that they are not mandated to provide in terms of reintegrating victims back into society.

As a result, the available safe spaces are ill-equipped and understaffed and are unable to provide the tools that victims need to lead normal lives.

In Kenya, safe spaces for GBV survivors are catered for in the law through the Witness Protection Agency. However, a request to be accommodated in the shelter still needs to be made by the Directorate of Criminal Investigation officer investigating the case.

Kenya currently has two government-run safe spaces. This is 45 short of the national target.

As of 2022, the National Shelters Network Kenya (NSN) was running 55 non-governmental safe spaces spread across 18 counties.

Available information indicates that as of 2022, there were 20 GBV response safe spaces in Uganda,

What the data says, GBV is rooted in gender inequality, cultural power dynamics between men and women, and harmful social and cultural norms.

According to the World Health Organization’s 2021 report, an estimated one in three women will experience physical or sexual abuse in their lifetime. Data further indicates that violence starts early in the lives of women, whereby of those who have been in a relationship, almost one in four adolescent girls aged 15–19 (24 per cent) have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner or husband.

According to the National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA), the number of GBV cases has been rising steadily over the years.

Between 2016 and 2017, a total of 3,130 cases were received. From 2017 to 2018, the office received 4,592 cases, from 2018 to 2019, at least 5,563 cases, from 2019 to 2020 some 7,004 while from 2020 to 2021 some 9,414 cases were filed.