Raising awareness on Gender-Based Violence and Empowering Deaf Women within their Communities

19 de Marzo de 2018

Training workshop by Sordas Sin Violencia - Photo: SSV for UNDP

It is a Saturday afternoon in the city of Buenos Aires. Eleven women are staring at each other. Each one of them waits for her turn to talk to the others; they have a lot to say. It is the first time that they meet to discuss how to act as intermediaries between female victims of gender-based violence and access to justice services. Almost all of them are Deaf, though in the group there are some Argentine Sign Language (LSA) -Spanish interpreters too.  

A young woman who belongs to a fourth generation Deaf family talks about how she feels and, at the same time, illustrates the purpose of the meeting and of many other activities organized by the “Sordas Sin Violencia” Program (“Non Violence to Deaf Women”, in English) supported by UNDP Argentina: “As Deaf women, we constantly encounter obstacles and barriers. The biggest obstacles are found in communication and access to information. As I talk to other people, I learn from them. However, if I’m not able to communicate, if I don’t know my rights, I become vulnerable. I feel isolated and I can´t grow.”

The “Sordas Sin Violencia” Program is the only service in Argentina especially created to facilitate access to justice for Deaf women victims of gender-based violence. It is managed by civil society organizations, Enlaces Territoriales para la Equidad de Género and FUNDASOR. By means of the “Removing Barriers for Access to Justice of Deaf and hearing-impaired Women” initiative[i], the program creates an opportunity for women of the Deaf community to get out of isolation, learn about their rights and, if necessary, resort to justice.

Through the intermediaries’ training workshop, we aim at increasing the number of Deaf women trained on gender-based violence, who may build an empathetic relationship with other Deaf women, and provide them with information, support, or help in order to access justice if they are being subjected to violence”, as explained by Mariana Reuter and Ester Mancera, coordinators of the “Sordas Sin Violencia” program. The work strategy also includes holding discussion forums, communication through social networks, and organizing LSA workshops on the different forms of gender-based violence.

In reference to this strategy, the UNDP Argentina team conducting this innovation initiative highlights the following: “One of the most interesting aspects of the work strategy chosen by Enlaces Territoriales and Fundasor is that it combines primary and secondary prevention actions. In other words, it develops preventive activities which take place before violence occurs (and aim to avert it), and also, acts at a secondary level facilitating a timely approach to keep violence from growing and/or causing major consequences. In addition, the strategy is deployed at an individual, community and social level, and this, as current research shows, is what causes a greater impact in the medium and long term.”

Movie Discussion Forums, Workshops and Social Networks

Movie discussion forums are being held in schools, shelters, associations, and cultural centers of the Deaf community. Here, after viewing “Refugiado” (“Refugee”), women share their experiences, discuss the movie and are able to identify most of the situations they have to undergo. “The goal of these meetings is to identify gender-based violence as an abnormal behavior. By holding these meetings, we have learned that respect for language and culture is essential to accomplish this goal. Also, we have learned that it is extremely important to pay special attention to timing, pauses, comprehension, and above all, to what the movie awakens within each participant.

The film was also shown in the opening of the 2017 International Film Festival for Gender Equality known as “Mujeres en Foco” (“Women in Focus” in English) given that, as a result of this initiative, it became the first subtitled film accessible for Deaf People in Argentina. “Subtitles are a major step in a long journey towards drawing attention to the impact of gender-based violence on women and children. In order to write the script, we visited shelters and workshops attended by victims of gender-based violence. From its inception, the film was intended to raise awareness and, today, we are glad to see that little by little we are accomplishing this goal” as Diego Lerman, the director of the film, explained during the event.

This program also uses social networks to reach out to Deaf women so they can learn about their rights and mobilize themselves against gender-based violence. A Facebook profile, @SordasSinViolencia, and a secret group which gathers over 2800 women of the community were created together with a WhatsApp hotline. As explained by them, women communicate mainly in LSA through video calls o simple text messages in Spanish, and in this way, they create a bond which serves as a gateway to expressing how they feel, seeking counselling and participating in workshops.  

LSA is used in both online spaces and workshops so that Deaf women may familiarize with the provisions of the Argentine Comprehensive Protection National Law to Prevent, Punish, and Eradicate Violence against Women Act (No. 26,485). In such meeting, a future intermediary explained the significance of these activities: “Sign Language is part of my culture. My family, my friends and I naturally communicate that way. We need to access information in our own language, but we also require that LSA incorporate important concepts for gender equality. For example, nowadays, the sign used for “man” and “woman” is also used to refer to “gender” and the sign used for “violence” only refers to physical violence excluding other forms of violence. There are many examples of this. In order to take part in the national strike, we even had to create our own way to refer to the “Ni una Menos” (“Not One Less” in English) movement using the signs: WOMEN, OPPRESSION, STOP.”

[i] Removing Barriers for Access to Justice of Deaf and hearing-impaired Women” was selected by the 2017 UNDP Innovation Initiative, a program supported by the Danish Government encouraging novel approaches to complex human development challenges.