At SCIDaR, we work every day in communities where gender based violence is not an abstract concept, it is a lived reality that shapes health outcomes, economic opportunity, and the quiet calculus of survival. So when this year’s International Women’s Day theme calls us to “Give to Gain,” we hear it not as a sentiment, but as a call to account. We must invest in women’s safety, dignity, and opportunity to strengthen the very foundations of our society. And we must be honest about how far we still have to go. Giving in this context is not charity; it is commitment and action. And nowhere is that commitment more urgent than in the fight against gender-based violence.
A Crisis Hidden in Plain Sight
Gender-based violence remains one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world. From urban centres to rural communities, from conflict zones to workplaces, no region is untouched. Globally, UN Women estimates that every 11 minutes, a woman or girl is killed by someone in her own family (UPI, 2022). Millions more endure emotional, physical, sexual, and economic abuse that never makes it into a report or dataset (UNFPA). The consequences are profound: diminished health outcomes, weakened workforce participation, long-term psychological trauma, and economic losses that cost countries up to 3.7 percent of their GDP, a figure that speaks to the scale of the crisis, but can never capture its human cost.
Its most devastating impact is often its silence, how it hides in culturally accepted behaviours, in unequal power dynamics, in environments that normalise harmful jokes or dismiss lived experiences, and in systems that fail to protect the vulnerable or hold perpetrators accountable. For survivors, the impact rarely ends when the violence does. Many navigate daily realities shaped by stress, environmental triggers, diminished confidence, and unresolved trauma long after the violence itself occurred.
When Survivors Choose to Speak
At the Human Mata Exhibition, a collaboration between SCIDaR and the Dorothy Njemanze Foundation, survivors chose to break the silence. Their testimonies reveal not only acts of violence, but systems that failed to protect them and communities that looked away. Their courage is not simply a call for sympathy. It is a call for structural change.
What follows is one such testimony. We share it with care, and with deep respect for the person who entrusted us with it.
“For years, violence shaped my life in ways I did not yet have the words to explain. I was raped for 9 good years from age 7-15. At Age 8, my mum caught my dad raping me, but did nothing because he pleaded that she save their marriage, and so the abuse continued. It is still evident by the physical marks and scars on my body, which he inflicted on me whenever I tried to resist him. I learned early what it meant to live in silence, to try to speak and not be believed, and to carry pain that no child should ever have to carry. The effects showed not only in my body, but in my mind, how withdrawn I became, how I learned to disappear and drown my pain in a journal which I kept to document my experiences daily.”
If these stories tell us anything, it is that awareness must lead to action, and action must be sustained through systems, leadership, and a willingness to change. Culture is built in the everyday choices we make, how we speak, how we listen, and how we respond when something is not right. Ending gender-based violence requires more than moments of outrage.
What “Giving” Looks Like at SCIDaR
For us, the Give to Gain principle takes concrete shape:
- Giving our voices when harmful jokes are normalised,
- Giving institutional backing to workplace policies that protect survivors,
- Giving budgetary priority to survivor-centred health and justice services,
- Giving tools to the society especially boys and men to unlearn harmful norms
- Giving safe space to survivors to report and respond.
In return, we “Gain” safer schools, stronger families, healthier workplaces, and a more productive economy. Evidence shows that prevention, protection and response-focused approaches work best when they combine legal protection, community education, community buy-in/advocates, accessible & inclusive reporting mechanisms, and survivor centered support systems.
Our Commitment
On this day, and every day, we reaffirm our zero tolerance forsexual exploitation, abuse and gender based violence in our communities, in our workplaces, and in our future. We all share the responsibility to challenge it, prevent it, and support those who have survived it.
Safe environments are not accidental. They are created deliberately, consistently, and with empathy.
#InternationalWomensDay #IWD2026 #EndGBV #StopGenderViolence #BreakTheSilence #SafeSpacesForWomen #HearHerVoice #NoMoreViolence #GenderJustice #ActAgainstGBV #EmpowerWomen #Human MataExhibition #SCIDaRStands #WomenAndGirlsMatter #CollectiveAction #CourageToAct
