Data and statistics to assist women survivors and lawmakers address gender-based violence – Series of stories for 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence 2022
28 November 2022Crisis centres adopting administrative databases are better able to track volumes of women being counselled plus identify trends to assist support services, survivors, lawmakers, and others to better address violence against women and girls.
“The gender-based violence administrative database for Chuuk Women’s Council will enable them to collect data to influence policy reforms or develop strategies to address violence against women and girls,” said Arti Devi, Pacific Women Lead at SPC’s Database Officer.
Arti, oversees data management support to the programme and its partners including the only crisis centre in Chuuk state, Federated States of Micronesia – Chuuk Women’s Council (CWC). She is also designing a database for Women United Together Marshall Islands.
The Gender-based Violence (GBV) administrative database is designed as a data management tool for crisis centres moving from basic, paper-based documentation of client information to a consolidated, data-focused electronic approach.
This database approach is known to assist crisis centres better track their cases, identify trends, and capture overall volumes of violence against women and girls (VAWG). When used in community awareness, VAWG data has proven in several cases to make women in Chuuk realise the large scale of the problem and to subsequently decide to report domestic violence.
“This database has been set up to complement their services and also provide very clear indicators for them to be able to track, if there’s a repeat counselling session, how often does this particular client come in, and other details,” Arti said.
“It can also assist organisations like Pacific Women Lead design future programmes based on evidence,” she said.
SPC is committed to improving gender equality, women’s empowerment and ending violence against women and girls. Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality – programmes that work to improve gender equality and women’s empowerment contribute to ending gender-based violence.
This story is part of a series being published by SPC during this year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence to demonstrate how science and technical approaches directly contribute to gender equality and ending VAWG. Refer to this year’s SPC 16 Days web-page for more details.
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Human Rights and Social Development