The Power of Social Enterprise in Tackling Gender Inequality and Violence
There are a lot of social evils and challenges in the present day world which have to rectified or overcome to make the society a better place for the current as well as the future generation. The manifesto is being prepared in order to highlight the various aspects of a social enterprise starting from the inception to goal setting to goal achievement to challenges to business. A social enterprise is a hybrid type of organisation as it normally acts within the operational structure of a private as well as a public or non profit organisations. Maldives is a unique country with 99% of its surface covered by water and an average 2.4 metres above sea level. The capital city of Male is very densely populated and issues like gender violence and child abuse is rampant. The social issue is further complicated by lack of housing facilities, drug abuse, religious radicalisation, racism and unhealthy lifestyle. The standard of education is also not something to boast about and corrupt government makes everything more convoluted. The enterprise will try to act as a guardian for such people and try to provide them with amenities and jobs.
Maldives ranks 64 in the gender inequality index and 115 in the global gender gap index. Around 20% of women have been suffering from a lifetime of physical as well as sexual intimate violence by their partners. It has been also reported that around 6% of women have suffered from such violence in the past one year (Kanwal and Munir, 2015). There have been reports which state that 6% of women have been suffering from lifetime of sexual violence meted by non-partners. The citizens of Maldives do not understand the implications and labyrinthine nature of child marriage which is why 4% of the women had been victims of child marriages.
Maldives, hence, does not paint a very pretty picture when it comes to women safety, equality and opportunity. For a country to be heavily dependent on tourism, such statistical figures do not imbue confidence in travellers, especially female travellers. According to Lama (2018), the women in Maldives live in fear for their life in their own homes and it is shamefully reflected from the fact that police records show that the domestic violence cases have increased from 187 in 2014 to more that 300 in 2016. Women are strong creatures. They suffer in silence believing that it is will of God. This is not true and this is what our organisation is planning to prove to these hapless women.
Maldives: A Unique Country with Diverse Social Problems
The short term goals of the enterprise are:
- One of the immediate goals of the enterprise will be to identify as well as assign value to all the unpaid domestic work and care that women do.
- To provide the access to basic amenities to physical, sexual and reproductive health.
- The enterprise also wishes to act as a deterrent to gender related violence by acting as an active to those having abusive families.
- Generating awareness by using paper, digital and social media platforms.
- Setting up websites for reporting physical and sexual abuse and relaying the information to the authorities.
- Enabling use of information and communication technology among women to boost women empowerment.
The long terms goals of the enterprise will be:
- Ensuring full and effective women participation in context of opportunities and platform to showcase leadership at decision making in public as well as economic life.
- Consulting with government to undertake reforms, policies and acts voicing equal rights of women to economic resources as well as any other amenity without discrimination.
- Develop enforceable legislation to boost anti-domestic violence and related abuse, sexual and physical.
- Interact with international organisations to receive funds that will help in providing women with access to education, basic health and reproductive rights.
In order to achieve the immediate goals it is necessary for the organisation to hire women workers who are familiar with the existing conditions of the society. These women will act as the pillars of strength and resolution to those women who are currently undergoing violence trauma (Iqbal et al. 2016). In order achieve the goal to provide basic health amenities the enterprise will try to tie up with international aid agencies and the funds that will be received will be utilised for developing the necessary infrastructure. These funds will be also diverted to pay the women some reimbursement for their silent and unpaid work and service. As observed by El-Horr and Pande (2016), in order to take up gender equality issue at the administrative levels of the government, it will be necessary for the enterprise to lobby the ideas with like minded individuals. The society’s narrative can be only challenged by conducting awareness campaigns and providing women with a platform to raise their issues and voices (El-Horr and Pande, 2016).
The island nation of Maldives has a history of hiding violent incidents against women. This is because majority of the society believes that the several issues that lead to the violence need to be kept buried within the family to make sure that reputation is of the family is not hampered in the society (Baudassé and Bazillier, 2014). These beliefs and existing societal norms are primary obstacles to dealing with issues of gender related violence. The Maldivian society always had the tendency to believe that women are supposed to be housewives looking after their family while the male members of the family act as breadwinners in the society.
This resulted in declining efforts in pursuing education for girls. However, as noted by Nabi, Wei and Ghous (2016), over the several decades and due to introduction of activities like universal primary education system, it is now compulsory that all children receive education thus improving the situation for girls to pursue education. Hence one of the measure is educating the predominant male society so as it acknowledges women as equal members of the society. Such beliefs have been common in almost all the developed nations and Maldives has fallen behind the world because of the rigid societal beliefs.
It is also equally important for women to take part in the decision and policy making. A man cannot ever understand the difficulties of being in Maldives. In order to boost gender equality, it is critical for women to come forward willfully and take part in decision making process. However, factually, there are very few women representatives present in the Maldivian political administration (Heirigs and Moore, 2018). The figureheads of the government have been predominantly males and in their administration only a maximum of 22% of the representatives were females. In order to achieve the goal of equality irrespective of gender, it is critical to increase the negligible number of representatives in the country.
The Statistics and Reality of Gender Inequality in Maldives
It was reported that out of the 85 members in parliament in 2017, only 5 were women while the rest were men. The current gender inequality in Maldives is far from being good as out three women at least one has been a victim to sexual or physical abuse. Hence, according to Costa et al. (2017), it is necessary to stand against such atrocities without any bias. The existing government claims that they have a zero tolerance to violence and atrocities committed on women and hence it is important for the entire society to invest efforts in women empowerment and equality.
Creating awareness and implementing the acts of anti-domestic violence requires immense support from all the citizens of the society and not just women (Klassen, 2017). It is necessary to teach women that being abused or tolerating violence is not right irrespective of the fact that is meted by the family or the husband. Women need to stand up to their perpetrators and challenge the existing norms and belief system. It should be clear that people do not invest efforts to help out others and in case of gender related people who are unaffected do not wish to entangle themselves in such matter which makes it more significant for women to raise their voices (El-Horr and Pande, 2016).
The government is equally responsible for turning a blind eye to such issues in the past and hence it is advisable to rally against the government to implement acts and legislations that help a gender violence victim to get the justice they deserve. It is also an individual responsibility of the citizens of Maldives to save violence affected victims as well as report such incidents to respective authorities before the situation worsens. In accordance to Jones and Ramchand (2016), the enterprise requires people of similar mindsets to come together to erase such a disgusting social evil from the society.
Conclusion
Irrespective of where one stays in the world, there are always occurence of gender inequality and gender related violence. Maldives is nothing different. The enterprise has set goals which are aimed to provide women a voice that till now has been mere whisper. There are chances of facing personal and proprietary threats. People who raise their voices against injustice will always be opposed but once they are able to make their voices heard cannot be stifled or silenced. The enterprise plans to do so without caring for rejection and opposition from the society because it is the right thing to do.
References
Baudassé, T. and Bazillier, R., (2014). Gender inequality and emigration: Push factor or selection process?. International Economics, 139, pp.19-47.
Costa, J.C., Wehrmeister, F.C., Barros, A.J. and Victora, C.G., (2017). Gender bias in careseeking practices in 57 low–and middle–income countries. Journal of global health, 7(1).
El-Horr, J. and Pande, R.P., (2016). Gender Differentials in Outcomes.
El-Horr, J. and Pande, R.P., (2016). The Context for Gender Differentials in Maldives.
El-Horr, J. and Pande, R.P., (2016). Understanding Gender in Maldives: Toward Inclusive Development. World Bank Publications.
Heirigs, M.H. and Moore, M.D., (2018). Gender inequality and homicide: a cross-national examination. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 42(4), pp.273-285.
Iqbal, S., Islam, A., Ramalho, R. and Sakhonchik, A., (2016). Unequal before the law: measuring legal gender disparities across the world. The World Bank.
Jones, G.W. and Ramchand, D.S., (2016). Closing the Gender and Socio?economic Gaps in Educational Attainment: a Need to Refocus. Journal of International Development, 28(6), pp.953-973.
Kanwal, A. and Munir, K., (2015). The impact of educational and gender inequality on income inequality in South Asia.
Klasen, S., (2017). UNDP’s gender-related measures: Current problems and proposals for fixing them (No. 220). Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth-Discussion Papers.
Lama, P.D., (2018). Gendered consequences of mobility for adaptation in small island developing states: case studies from Maafushi and Kudafari in the Maldives. Island Studies Journal, 13(2).
Nabi, G., Wei, S. and Ghous, G., (2016). Do we have proportionate gender in policy making? A Study based on key Government Institutions of SAARC Region. Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems: INDECS, 14(1), pp.39-51.
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