Sometimes, what you don’t know can kill you—like not knowing about proper nutrition and handwashing, safe sex practices and maternal health support. Other times, what you don’t know can severely disempower you—like not knowing where to turn for help after you have been raped. When it comes to gender-based violence (GBV), women and girls are …
In a small classroom in Juba, male and female students listen attentively as Grace Losio launches into a lesson on what it takes to be a midwife. Like Losio, many of the students have come here with a passion.
Nyabong Puok is a 35-year-old South Sudanese mother of six living in Jewi Refugee Camp, in Ethiopia’s Gambella region. She is one of thousands of South Sudanese who fled their homes seeking a safe place where they and their families could settle and start a new life. Gambella is home to more than 410,000 refugees …
In six refugee camps in Gambella, Ethiopia, International Medical Corps provides services to prevent and help victims recover from gender-based violence (GBV). Within each of the camps, vulnerable women and girls visit women-friendly centers every day to receive much-needed services, including psychosocial support. Adolescent girls even have a separate section where they can meet and …
Enisa Eminovska has been confronting gender inequality for most of her life. She characterizes the Roma culture in Macedonia, where she grew up, as “extremely patriarchal and conservative.” When, at the age of 13, her desire to play sports provoked an extended family meeting on her failure to “act like a girl,” her mother had …
As a child growing up in Liberia, “I always knew something was wrong,” says Gertrude Garway, International Medical Corps’ Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Manager in South Sudan. She watched as young girls around her were forced to marry much older men, who then raped and beat them. When these women or girls in forced marriages resisted …
“It has reached epidemic proportions.” This is how Sara Othow, Caseworker with International Medical Corps team in Aburoc, South Sudan, describes the level of sexual and gender-based violence (GBV) in the country. When I interviewed Sara about the situation in South Sudan earlier this year, she explained that several factors are behind the high levels …
Violence against women is endemic in every corner of the globe. Rape and sexual abuse violate the bodies, minds and hearts of women and girls—and this tears at the fabric of households and communities wherever it occurs. Though International Medical Corps works tirelessly to treat survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) in places where little to …