This document summarizes a presentation on gender-based violence in schools. It discusses how gender-based violence disproportionately impacts girls and includes both explicit forms of violence like sexual harassment and assault, as well as implicit forms like verbal abuse and assigning girls gender-stereotypical tasks. The causes of this violence are rooted in patriarchal societies and cultures that promote inequality. Effective measures to address gender-based violence in schools require a whole-school approach involving administrators, teachers, students and parents, as well as reforming teacher training, strengthening anti-violence policies, and cultural changes to increase the value of girls.

1. Gender-based Violence in Schools :
Problems, Challenges and Measures
Presented by
GARIMA SINGH
Assistant Professor
Department of Social Work
University of Lucknow

2. What is Gender Based Violence
Violence against women is a global pandemic: Between 15 and
76 per cent of women experience it at some point in their
lifetime.
Gender-based violence is violence directed against any person
on the basis of gender, including acts that inflict physical, mental
or sexual harm or threats of such acts. While any person may be
subjected to gender-based violence, women and girls are the
primary victims because of their subordinate status.
Thus, the term gender-based violence is generally understood as
violence against women since women are overwhelmingly
victimized because of their sex worldwide

3. • The concept of “gender-based violence” is not
limited to sexual and physical violence, but includes
all forms of violence when victims are targeted on
the basis of gender roles traditionally assigned to
their sex. This may vary from requiring only girls to
clean classrooms and school grounds, to exposing
students to demeaning sexually laden language that
undermines their self-esteem (e.g., whore, homo,
gayboy, or slut).

4. Forms of Gender-based Violence
• School-related gender-based violence can be broadly
clustered into two overlapping categories: explicit
gender (sexual) violence, which includes sexual
harassment, intimidation, abuse, assault and rape, and
• implicit gender violence, which includes corporal
punishment, bullying, verbal and psychological abuse,
teacher’s unofficial use of students for free labour and
other forms of aggressive or unauthorized behaviour
that is violent
(Akiba et al., 2002)

5. Unsafe Schools
Traditionally in South Asia, schools have centered more on the
teacher than they have on the children. Children are seen as
passive recipients of the knowledge the teacher has to
impart. A child who does not listen or learn is punished, and
this is seen as part of the ‘method of teaching’
Gender violence in and around school has been recognized in
recent years as a serious global phenomenon. We have ignored
for too long what goes on in the school environment. The sad
fact is that schools are not always the child-friendly places we
expect them to be. Violence can be perpetrated by pupils or
teachers in or around the school, or by out of school youth
and/or older men who demand sex in exchange for money or
gifts. Acts of gender violence are disproportionately directed at
girls, but boys and teachers can also be targets.

6. Causes of Gender-based Violence
• School-related violence in developing countries takes place on
the context of inequality and specific cultural beliefs and
attitudes about gender roles, especially concerning male and
female sexuality, a pattern of economic inequality, and in
some instances significant political unrest and violent conflict.
• Most school environments, reflect the patriarchal society and
demonstrate discrimination against girls.
• Schools in many countries turn a deaf ear to the female
student’s complaints and many girls do not even complain
because of a fear of reprisals, especially from teachers, but
also because they believe that nothing will be done.In many
schools administrators, community and misters of education
ignore the violence against girls.

7. Gender Based Violence in Schools: Key
Facts
• A study in the USA found that 83 per cent of girls in grades 8 to 11 (aged around 12 to 16) in public
schools experienced some form of sexual harassment.
• According to a 2006 study of schoolgirls in Malawi, 50 per cent of the girls said they had been touched
in a sexual manner “without permission, by either their teachers or fellow schoolboys”.
• In Latin America, sexual harassment in schools has been found to be widespread in the Dominican
Republic, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama, among other countries.
• In a survey of girls in Zimbabwean junior secondary schools, 50 per cent of girls reported unsolicited
sexual contact on the way to school by strangers and 92 per cent of girls reported being propositioned by
older men.
• Forty per cent of the 77 million school-age children not attending school live in conflict-affected areas.
• A survey in Afghanistan noted that 83 per cent of children interviewed said they had been slapped,
kicked and caned at school. In Pakistan, corporal punishment prevails in more than 40 per cent of
government schools and some 35 per cent of private schools.
• Girls who are members of racial or ethnic minorities or who are Indigenous may be
targeted for violence and face particular barriers to education. For example, Romani girls in
several European countries face obstacles to education, including discrimination, high rates of
poverty, patriarchal traditions which result in lower expectations for girls and early drop-outs,
family obligations and early marriages

8. Outcomes of Gender based violence
• In the developing world the impact of violence on school girls
attacks the economic and social well-being of developing
counties. There are critical issues that must be addressed
such as the rise of HIV, lack of basic education and low
literacy rates that impact the education and health of the
nation
• In the face of violence at school, children may simply run
away and begin a life on the streets
• School-related gender-based violence is a widespread barrier
to girls’ attaining educational equity, which also brings with it
many health risks.
• Consequences of gender violence on girls in South Africa as
including disrupted education (absenteeism, changing
schools, drop-out), ridicule by classmates (especially taunting
by boys), diminished school performance through trauma,
emotional or behavioural disorder, and risk to health

9. Effective Measures and Strategies
 In tackling gender violence in schools, a whole school approach involving
management, teachers, pupils and the curriculum is necessary to ensure that the
messages are consistent and reinforced by teachers and pupils alike.
 To play an effective role in addressing gender-based violence, teachers need to
understand and confront their own attitudes and experiences regarding gender and
violence. Given that some teachers are perpetrators of abuse, and others may be
victims of abuse, it is important that strategies to address gender violence in
schools acknowledge and address teachers’ experiences as well as students, so that
constructive and collaborative relationships can be encouraged. The teacher
training curriculum will need to prepare teachers for such a role.
 Achieving that goal, however, requires systemic reform and active involvement by
all stakeholders. Parents, PTA members, teachers, union officials, teacher trainers,
administrators, policymakers, and the media all working together can create a
supportive learning environment for all children.

10. Train all teachers in non-violent methods of
disciplining students.
Strengthen gender component to the
curriculum, and continuously educate and
create awareness among school communities
to stop physical, psychological and sexual
violence and abuses.
 Put in place a system for follow-up, reporting
and ensuring the enforcement and
implementation of school rules and
regulations.

11. Concluding Remarks
Schools are part of society and reflect traditions and values at the same time that they
play a crucial role in social change. In order for major social change to be effectively
embedded in schooling, the larger community must understand and support these
changes. More specifically, without a clear policy framework that defines, prohibits,
and carries penalties for acts of school-related gender- based violence, all other efforts
will be less than optimally effective. Such policies signal that gender violence is a
serious issue, one that cannot be ignored.
Several reports emphasize that regulations on gender-based violence and sexual
harassment need to be developed, enforced, and widely disseminated in order to be
effective and accessible. This includes schools having in place a means of reporting and
recording incidences of violent behaviour in schools and of hiring counsellors to
respond to reports of violence. Schools also need to work with the ministries of
education to develop policies on teacher misconduct, and the ministries need to
establish a special unit dealing with cases of abuse.
Policy implementation must follow policy development, and this may
be the greatest challenge of all. As difficult as curricular materials,
training manuals, and school and national policies are to develop, the
will to enforce these policies requires the kind of sustained attention
and commitment that is hard to maintain as leaders change and
circumstances shift.

12. To effectively eliminate the abuse of girls there must
be a systemic cultural change in the value of girls.
There needs to be a change in attitude and behaviour
among the people. There must be economic and
social growth that increases the education and fiscal
stability of the developing countries. This growth can
only come through provision of resources and
education.
There must be a system of enlightenment to dispel
the myths and thoughts at the low value of girls To
rectify gender violence men must understand the
power in gender relations and become role models to
increase equity.

13. THANK YOU