Domestic Violence Study on Sexual Harassment, a project with Salmmah Women's Resource Centre, Sudan

In 2010-2011, Salmmah Women’s Resource Center in Sudan followed up on their previous year’s project under WRRC on sexual harassment, which had aimed to raise awareness, collect baseline data, inform policy makers of the underlying contributing factors, and suggest examples of measures to adopt for effective remedy. They undertook desk research (on sexual harassment in Egypt and Morocco) and field research (interviews with female students, waitresses and tea-sellers) in Year 2 of the WRC Programme, where they found that 99.9% of interview respondents reporting being sexually harassed on a daily basis. They held a public forum (the first of its kind) including journalists, psychologists and activists (government were invited but did not attend).

Their Year 3 project built upon this by liaising with journalists and caricaturists around the issue of sexual harassment. In a rippling effect, the participant who had attended the Africa regional WRRC Strategic E-Campaigning workshop in Year 2, worked with Salmmah staff to conduct two 3-day training workshops directly using the techniques learned at the ICT trainings. One was held through the organization’s Youth Program (amongst 20 young women and men who had engaged with Salmmah around the issue of sexual harassment and CVAW) and one with journalists and caricaturists (15 were invited, but due to the national elections at the same time only 8 could attend). The caricaturists then created cartoons illustrating the realities of sexual harassment and distributed these online (blogs, Facebook, Twitter). The workshops focused on: the concept of VAW and social/alternative media; communication strategies for advocacy; and strategic use of social/alternative media tools.