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The purpose of this paper is to explore the causes, forms, extent, and consequences of sexual harassment and sexual violence at public sector workplaces in Tanzania.

A total of 1,593 civil servants participated in the survey, which was conducted in the Mtwara Region of Tanzania. The quantitative data were complemented with the results from eight focus group discussions.

The study revealed that 21 percent of women and 12 percent of men had experienced sexual harassment personally. Overall, rural-based public servants had less knowledge of relevant policies, and experienced more sexual harassment than their urban colleagues. The majority of perpetrators were identified as men in senior positions; the majority of victims were recognized to be young female employees. Frequently reported behaviors included sexual bribery with regard to resource allocation, promotions, allowances, and other benefits.

Despite the existence of conducive legal and policy frameworks aimed at protecting employees from sexual harassment and violence, their implementation and effects were found to be limited. Only half of the study population was aware of the existing regulations. The study found that the majority of public servants who had knowledge on the issue had learned about sexual harassment in the context of an HIV/AIDS workplace program. This finding indicates that well-designed workplace interventions can play an important role in creating awareness, addressing gender stereotypes, and informing employees about their personal rights and responsibilities.

Sexual harassment and gender-based violence at the workplace has never been studied before in Tanzania. The study provides practical recommendations for future preventive interventions.

This introduction sets forth the main themes of the volume, reviews the methods employed by the contributors, and demonstrates the relationships among the chapters.

The chapters in the volume exemplify current research approaches to the subject matter: gender-based violence. The introduction identifies both trends and gaps that might be filled by future research.

Worldwide attention is being drawn to examples and forms of gender-based violence. These are currently major topics in the media, both factual and fictional. Public policies are under discussion and programs to deal with them are developing. However, because the discussions and the programs are often not research-based or intersectionally inclusive, gender-based violence persists and victims are sometimes ignored, blamed, or subjected to further violence.

The chapter serves as an overall introduction to the volume and the subject matter more generally.

This chapter examines technology-facilitated violence from the perspective of international human rights law. It explores current research relating to technology-facilitated violence and then highlights the international human rights instruments that are triggered by the various forms of such violence. Ultimately, it focuses upon international human rights to privacy and to freedom from violence (especially gender-based violence) and the obligations on State and Nonstate actors to address violations of these rights. It argues that adoption of a human rights perspective on technology-facilitated violence better enables us to hold State and Nonstate actors to account in finding meaningful ways to address violence in all of its forms.

Gender-based abuses (GBAs; more frequently referred to as ‘violence against women’) have been a concern of current day feminists and their predecessors, dating back centuries, but only came under broader scrutiny in the latter half of the twentieth century. The goal of this chapter is to provide a historical overview of the emergence of feminist concerns and activism that led to a largely global identification and recognition of the prevalence and ramifications of GBA. The chapter includes a range of GBAs, such as sexual harassment, stalking, sex trafficking, and forced marriage, but focusses primarily on intimate partner abuse and rape. It is beyond the scope of one chapter, or even one book, to adequately address the efforts to respond to GBA across the world. Instead, the authors hope to describe the work by feminist activists and scholars to identify GBA as a serious and prevalent social problem, the various and often overlapping types of GBA, and the work to design and implement a range of responses to deter GBA, advocate for GBA survivors, hold gender-based abusers accountable, and provide safer communities. In addition to the early attempts to assess and respond to GBA, this chapter covers some of the most original and innovative documentations and responses to GBA from across the globe.

The prevalence of domestic violence in Nigeria may be described as epidemic. To address this scourge, several pieces of legislation have been enacted in the past decade at state and federal levels in Nigeria. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the emerging legislation on domestic violence. This paper thus examines the contents of these laws in a bid to determine the potential of these laws to prevent domestic violence, deter perpetrators from further incidents, punish perpetrators, compensate survivors and provide them with the necessary interventions for their rehabilitation.

The approach adopted is a content analysis of the provisions of the legislation, using salient parameters that have been drawn from documented best practices, specifically the key components for framing of domestic violence legislation around the world.

The author finds that while there is significant attempt in extant legislation to ensure that women are protected within domestic relationships, there are still gaps. Further, the protections are uneven across the states. In addition, there are systemic and contextual challenges that hamper the effectiveness of existing legislation in Nigeria in providing the necessary protections to women.

This study analyses the provisions of some of the legislation currently in place to protect persons from domestic violence. The impact, potential effect and overall utility of these pieces of legislation continue to require examination.

Northwest Nigeria is mostly populated by the Hausa and Fulani ethnic groups. Social inclusions and gender equality are listed among the fundamental rights. They are essential for human being to put up their best efforts in resolving all difficulties without restraint. Nonetheless, these rights are frequently withheld in many nations within the African continent, owing to ignorance, religion and custom fanaticism. In spite of these constraints, the northern Nigeria is faced with security issues such as persistent cattle rustling which ultimately evolved into armed banditry, which have exacerbated some lingering issues that revolves around children and women. This study attempts to examine the nature of the crisis that may relates to gender-based issues in Zamfara state. The article relied mostly on secondary literature. Evidences proved that security difficulties have worsened the living circumstances of women and girls in the understudied state, thereby espousing women and girls to dangerous attacks and hard living.

In Sri Lanka women make up the majority of the country's population. However, there is a concern that many women are subjected to any form of violence at home which is known as family violence, or in Sri Lanka which is identified as domestic violence. As such domestic violence is one of the topics that have gained attention in Sri Lanka under the major topic of gender-based violence (GBV). Sri Lanka also imposed prolonged lockdowns, travel/mobility restrictions, social distancing, and other health measures/restrictions to control the speedy spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a consequence, the life of women was unfavorably impacted. A increase in the number of domestic violence cases against women during public emergencies – here referred to COVID-19 – is one of such negative impacts. Therefore, this study intends to examine the adequacy of the existing laws of prevention of domestic violence in Sri Lanka and investigate the appropriateness of the available judicial mechanism including its preparedness in achieving the proper protection support for the women victims of domestic violence during public emergencies. To reach that goal this doctrinal research study heavily engages in a descriptive and detailed analysis of legal rules found in primary sources such as domestic statutes, international treaties, statistics, government circulars and regulations and case law, etc., in respect of the issue of domestic violence against women during public emergencies with specific reference to Sri Lanka. Secondary resources such as print and electronic text material are also utilized in the completion of this study.

Obstetric violence is the mistreatment of women in the setting of obstetric care, which includes preconception, medically assisted reproduction, pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum. Obstetric violence follows and perpetuates the devaluation and subjugation of women in patriarchal societies, where socio-cultural conceptions contribute to a view of the female body as faulty and deviating from the male prototype. These shape the perception that female reproductive processes require technological corrections. The medicalisation of reproductive processes and the mechanisation of a normal life event, with the threat of death and other life-changing consequences, disempower women and objectify the body and its functions.

The entrance of women into the workforce and the specialised fields, feminising care professions, failed to shift this paradigm. Female health workers are trained in the procedures instituted by dominant patriarchal structures, expressing values encoded in the professional culture and the institutions where they work. As women conform to the models they are exposed to during their training, perpetuating corporate hierarchies and practices, they act as agents and perpetrators of obstetric violence. Thus, obstetric violence also constitutes a specific type of violence against women at the hands of other women.