Information Dissemination Campaign on Domestic Violence

This campaign was built around the conviction that video is a powerful tool in social change. It can create awareness, encourage participation, and jump-start or accelerate processes aimed at creating community leadership and action. Thus, as part of the campaign, IVFT screened films on domestic violence and HIV/AIDS such as "Offence like Assault," "Nhasi Tavenehama," and "Ndizvo Zvandiri" as a precursor to facilitated discussions to spark community dialogue. Specifically, the project's communication strategy consisted of:

• using video and drama as an educational tool;
• using facilitated discussion to bring encourage community reflection, analysis, and action on the issue of violence against women; and
• using information toolkits printed in vernacular languages - print materials from The Legal Resources Foundation and the Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre Network - to ensure that the communities have ready access to information on the new Act as well as contact details of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in their area (e.g., free legal aid and emergency aid organisations) that can help them with counsel and advice or direct aid.

With this process, IVFT worked to reach women through clubs within churches and community centres in high-density areas in the four cities. The average club includes between 35 - 70 women members who are typically full-time housewives, as well as widowed and divorced women, who come together to work on different income-generating projects. IVFT also connected with men's clubs whose meetings are attended by a cross-section of males with different standards of living from both rural and urban areas in the country. In addition, the campaign reached out to the whole family unit during community screenings where the sexes were mixed and the message of what violence against women is and its link to HIV/AIDS as well as gender equality was communicated.

Women, HIV/AIDS.

IVFT is an information dissemination organisation that uses mobile cinema units to disseminate social information on issues such as HIV/AIDS, wills and inheritance issues, gender equality, safe migration, and other issues to communities in rural, high-density, and peri-urban areas where there is limited access to mainstream media. IVFT seeks to empower people through video-based campaigns in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region. According to IVFT, their campaigns have reached nearly four million people in eight SADC countries.

IVFT points to a strong link between domestic violence and HIV and AIDS. The fear of violence makes people less able to refuse unsafe sex or negotiate for condom usage even if they know that their partners are infected with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and/or HIV. Research shows that the main reasons for the overlap between domestic violence and HIV and AIDS are that coercive sex can cause injuries and bleeding that can lead directly to a higher risk of HIV infection.

A 1996 study by Musasa Project, a Zimbabwean NGO that addresses gender-based violence, found that 17% of women over 18 years of age in the Midlands Province had been assaulted by their intimate partners. Also according to this organisation, approximately 55% of domestic violence in Zimbabwe goes unreported, and - in the majority of cases reported - no action is taken. "These statistics are only a tip of the iceberg. Reasons for not reporting vary from socialisation which encourages that a person should not hang their dirty linen in public to lack of specific legislation to address the abuses they face."

When men were asked what they will do differently after the campaign, respondents had varied but positive comments, which included the following: "will stop beating my wife," "will stop being unfaithful," "will stop extra-marital affairs", "won't do bad things to my wife," and "will look for a positive way of channeling my frustrations." The issues discussed in connection with domestic violence prompted the men to suggest more forums for group dialogues.

When women were asked to reflect on the campaign, the following were some of the suggestions given to reduce domestic violence: increased communication, more publicity and advertisements, more awareness and education, more outreach programmes, trusting and loving among couples, and "Women who are dependent on their husbands need to find ways of earning an income as always relying on the husband to provide for the family alone can cause them great stress and frustration."