 Good morning and good afternoon to our viewers joining us from around the world. My name is Rachel Thomas, and I am the senior military advisor on women, peace and security in the Secretary's office of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of State. Today, we are discussing violence against politically active women. This problem has historically gone under documented and under reported, but that does not mean it does not exist. As more women run for office, take on leadership roles in political parties, claim their right to equal representation in political processes, they have often faced an intense backlash. Violence against women in politics discourages other women from engaging politically, threatens peace and security and undermines the building of robust democratic institutions. Today, we are discussing the various ways civil society and government representatives can encourage, protect and empower women's political participation. Before we begin, I would like everyone to understand that we might discuss topics that involve sexual assault or examples of physical threats or sexual harassment that may make people uncomfortable. Everything we discuss will be to further promote the need to respect women's civic, political and human rights. It is my pleasure to introduce today's speakers. Joining us in studio is Sandra Papera, Director for Gender, Women and Democracy for the National Democratic Institute. Joining us virtually is Dr. Gabrielle Bardal, a research associate with the Center for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa. I would also like to introduce our live audience joining us from the U.S. Embassy Harare in Zimbabwe. Hello everyone. We also have viewing groups gathered in U.S. embassies and American spaces around the world, including Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Burundi, Botswana, Eswatini, the Republic of Congo, South Africa, Niger, the Seychelles Islands and Brazil. We want to hear everyone's thoughts and opinions during today's program and look forward to your questions. Please write your questions or comments in the chat box next to the video player. We will try our best to answer as many questions as possible during the course of today's program. I want to start by giving our viewers a better understanding of the issue of violence against women in politics. One of the many challenges when discussing how to address gender-based violence in politics is that it encompasses many different forms of aggression, coercion and intimidation. Sandra, what have you seen in your line of work? Well, first of all, let me say good morning and good afternoon to everybody in the network. It's a pleasure to be talking to you all across Africa today. Rachel, to your question, at NDI, we've seen it all. We base our definition on the UN Declaration on Violence Against Women, which really encompasses all forms of coercion, harassment, discrimination, aggression, that are intended to influence a woman's political engagement and the way she acts politically. So it's designed, essentially, to restrict the women's political participation, and that's why we're talking about it today. So we say it's gendered in its target because it targets women. It's gendered in its form because it's usually something that really speaks to women's identity as being women and it's gendered in its impact because it discourages other women from participating. As with all forms of violence against women, it moves from the private to the public space. Non-physical does not mean that it's not a violence, which is something those of us who've worked in the domestic violence space also understand. And particularly with technology, understanding how women react to some of the things that they experience coming through their cell phones or online is important. I heard you say in your introductory remarks that just because it's undocumented or unreported doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. And this is particularly true for women in politics. They seem particularly unwilling to talk about their experiences because they're going to be seen as not tough enough to be in politics or disloyal to their political partners or unreliable in the political space. So this is an issue that we see as being absolutely critical to the ability to have strong, robust democratic societies. We call the campaign not the cost because so often women are told it is the cost of being in politics. And some of you who saw our earlier video clip will understand from the women who spoke exactly how they feel and the experiences they've had. I could give you a couple of examples about why we say this is about women in politics. This is not about political violence. It's about violence against political women and there's a difference. And we can talk about the situation in Uganda where the opposition party went out on a rally and ended up with the only woman leader being stripped naked in public. That's violence against the political woman because the men weren't stripped naked in public. The woman was singled out and stripped naked in public. And there are other examples like that where women's ability to undertake their political functions are subtly undermined. There's a senator here in the United States who asked one of her colleagues a question on a legislative issue and he replied to her, well, I hope you've brought your knee pads with you, implying that, you know, in order to get his assistance with a piece of information, she may well have to perform a sex act on him. So these sorts of aggressions happen everywhere. Unfortunately, as we were saying, Ghana nowhere cool. It is unremarkable with regards to political system, area of the world, religion, creed. This happens to women everywhere. Right. And that unwillingness to talk about it kind of perpetuates the cycle as well. Absolutely. Gabrielle, can you help us understand what the same characteristics of violence against women in politics you've seen in your research? Absolutely. So as Sandra has already described, this is a really distinct form of violence with a very unique face to it. This is not the type of violence that men perpetrate against men in political spaces. That's the violence that grabs the headlines most often and that we've come to accept as the stereotypical form of violence that exists in a political space. So we're not talking necessarily and certainly not exclusively about bombs and assassinations and things of a very physically violent and public nature, although there's certainly very high levels of physical violence involved in this space. But it's a much broader and a much more diverse type of problem. In over a decade of researching and working on this topic for various institutions, we've come to see that this form of violence impacts women who exercise their democratic rights. So women who are running for office, as well as those who already hold office, both elected and appointed, female journalists, female academics, civic leaders, even religious leaders, women who work on those staffs as well for various leaders. So the staffers, the political activists, all of these women who break with the traditional role in their society to take on a voice to try to influence political outcomes and say in the direction of their country, we see them being targeted for different types of violence. And as I mentioned, we're not only talking about physical forms of violence here, but particularly about various social cycle forms of violence and sexual forms of violence as well. We understand that this occurs in diverse locations also, you know, when we think often about violence against or political violence more broadly, we think about things that happen in public spaces, protests, again, assassinations, things like this. When we're talking about the types of political violence that women experience, it also is occurring in more private spaces. As well as online. And this has become one of the most concerning issues that we've been discovering over the past couple of years. It's just how potent online spaces are to facilitating this type of violence. We understand that this is happening globally, whether that has very specific cultural faces in each country where it does occur. We see that women who are attacked online often go viral more often than men might. And that's because online forums, social media really feeds off of sensationalism. And it's much more sensational when a woman breaks with traditional norms and patterns of behavior than when a man might do so. There's a double standard in behavior, which feeds this type of thing. We see online violence taking diverse forms, anything from disinformation about women to hate speech to direct threats of violence. And we see it spreading beyond borders very quickly as well, which makes it hard to control. Likewise, online violence against women in politics is not only concerned with an individual perpetrator or victim relationship, but perpetrators can be a dozen people, a hundred people, thousands of people. So it's really a complex problem with many different phases. Gabrielle, I'd also be interested in your thoughts on why gender-based violence and politics affects the development of strong, inclusive and democratic societies. We know that this type of violence violates human rights of women. But how does it impact entire communities and even countries? Exactly. So violence against women in politics is a terrible act against an individual, but it is also an attack against the fiber of democracy in any given society. It attacks the rights and freedoms of women to participate in this space. But it's also a mechanism that institutionalizes a patriarchal control of democratic spaces through these coercive practices. So in so doing, we're seeing limitations on political participation of women, decreases in their ability to influence and express their voices and opinions, and exclusion. And democracy is about inclusive voices. It's about representation. It's about debate and dialogue and participation. And when you coercively and institutionally exclude half of the population from a full and equal participation in that conversation, you're attacking the very nature of democracy at its heart. Sandra, can you discuss the framework NDI uses to address violence against women in politics? And I think, you know, Gabrielle's answer was really on point, and I would only add to that, that let's think about what happens when a woman is elected or is representing us and can't fulfill her responsibilities fully. That actually impacts us as citizens and as voters. We voted for her to do a job for us. And now she's being undermined in her ability to do that job. So whilst there is an underlying singular narrative, as Gabrielle said, around gender inequality and gendered sociocultural norms, what we've seen is that the manifestations of this in the different sort of political institutions and sectors require different treatments. So what you would do to try and address this in a political party may be very different to what you might do to address it online. One of the examples I like to kind of raise for people is we did some work in Colombia with a number of human rights groups, women's rights groups and other minority rights groups, to look at what happens in the online space in particular. And colleagues from the deaf community there said, OK, it's all well and good to talk about, you know, abusive language, but people actually, apparently, film violent abuse and upload it as gifts. I mean, who has the time? But apparently some people in the world do. And so the multifaceted nature of the attacks have also to be addressed. Then, you know, in I was in a country in Africa, I won't name it right now. Last year, only to have a very senior woman politician say that she'd been at a rally recently and from the crowd. An older man sort of yelled at her in the local language, who taught you to climb a tree while wearing a skirt? You know, all these sorts of ways in which women are belittled and made to feel out of place when they step into the to the political space. And depending on where you are, this can have different impacts. You know, I always use the example if you are Hillary Clinton in the United States and somebody photoshopped your head onto a bikini. And, you know, has some toy boy hanging off of your body. Maybe, maybe in the United States, you might laugh at that. But if you do that to a political woman in some parts of the world, it's not just her political career that's affected. Actually, this has ramifications across her whole life. And I think, you know, if you are young, if you are marginalized by your within the majority, your community is a marginalized one. If you are geographically remote, then you're going to be particularly vulnerable. And I think that's why this is such a big issue. And it's why it requires us all to focus on what's happening in the space. Absolutely. Gabrielle, can you discuss another problem, which is violence against women in elections and the forms of electoral intimidation you've seen in your work? Sure. So violence against women in politics and violence against women in elections are very similar terms. The election period is really just a subset, if you will, of the broader political cycle. And the election period really has specific risks, as well as opportunities, I would say, in terms of how to address this problem. During the electoral cycle, it's a very intense and compact timeline, right? From the opening of a political campaign or the voter registration process through the declaration of results. So things happen extremely quickly. Responses need to happen in a timely manner, so as not to impact the results of the election. And things tend to be much more visible. There's high levels of national and international scrutiny on most elections. And so there's an amplified impact, if you will. So in that sense, the types of violence that women experience during elections periods can be really, really potent. Just take, for example, the case of, we've seen in Britain actually quite often, where female politicians are attacked online and these attacks go viral so quickly, you're seeing them retweeted and amplified. Thousands of times per hour. The damage that can cause on a person's reputation can be dramatic and can take place within a space of hours, which is much faster than any legal system or other can really react to these problems, especially when perpetrators are contributing to this from around the country, from around the world. And the amount of time it can take to address that type of problem in a legal procedure, I can easily exceed the electoral cycle. So the damage is done before election day happens. And that can damage a woman's political career, certainly in that electoral cycle, or perhaps much, much longer. We see impacts of violence against women elections continuing to exist for years after the date of the individual event, because it's an attack on reputation, on personality, on credibility, and public respect. So these types of violence are really high impact and high visibility. But I would say that the visibility of it also contributes to some actions against it. Electoral cycles tend to have specific rules and procedures that can help respond to these things. For example, codes of conduct for political parties, for media journalists and for electoral management bodies. When writing in, you know, zero tolerance policies on violence against women elections into those spaces, that's an additional tool to help respond to the problem. Likewise, working with journalists and media to help them understand how to recognize these issues. As Sandra said earlier, these aren't the types of violence that are necessarily making the big headlines, because they tend to be much more private, or because women are more hesitant to talk about them. So working with journalists to understand, to identify and to report on these problems as equally impactful on electoral cycles is also a way of leveraging the intensity of an electoral period to address this issue. Thank you so much Sandra and Gabrielle. I want to give our audience at US Embassy Harare in Zimbabwe, and an opportunity to ask our panelists questions on potential tools they can use to address violence against women in politics in their country. Hi, good morning Washington. It's a lovely rainy afternoon here in Urari, and we're absolutely delighted that we are accompanied today by a number of men and women activists who are actually working in the space of addressing political violence against women. Our first person who would like to ask the question of our experts is Star. Star, would you introduce yourself as well as your organization and your question. Thank you. My question is directed to Dr. Gabrielle. Is someone who is familiar with the Zimbabwe context, and is someone who carries out a very comprehensive research on violence against women? What do you think are some of the most effective solutions to curb violence against women before, during and after elections in Zimbabwe? Thank you. Yes, over the last two years, I have worked significantly, particularly in Zimbabwe, with the IFIS, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems Programs out there, and I would say that actually the work that we had done in Zimbabwe during the previous elections, was a particularly exciting model, both for Zimbabwe and for a broader context. Because in that case, if we work with Zimbabwe and civil society organizations to take a legal angle on this by understanding, first of all, how to identify these cases. So working with Zimbabwe and organizations to help identify potential victims of this issue. And then for those victims that felt comfortable with seeking, with taking their cases public and seeking justice for this, the IFIS team worked with Zimbabwe and legal experts to accompany them through that process. So in taking a legal angle on this, the approach was both to seek justice for the individual victims of the issue, but also to create, you know, to create a response to the problem in a public sense, by showing that there was indeed a zero tolerance for this problem. So that project, the IFIS project in 2018, had really constructive partnerships both with civil society as well as with institutional actors, such as the Electoral Commission and with the police forces, to help educate on the problem and to show that this was a type of violence that would not be tolerated at an institutional level. I believe it was an important approach to take in this situation, both because, again, of the seeking of individual justice for the survivors of the problem, as well as showing a zero tolerance in the broader community. Terrific. Thanks. I'd like to now look with the floor to Kouda with a second question. My name is Kouda Teteke. I'm with Tree of Life. My question is, how do we deal with politically motivated rape when it's almost an invisible crime and it's hardly ever reported? Sondar Gabriel, would you like to take? Sure. Go ahead, go ahead. Okay, very briefly. Politically motivated rape is a doubly complex issue because, first of all, rape in general, politically motivated or not, is under reported wherever it occurs around the world because of the deep social implications of it, the shame associated with it, the retraumatization. When it occurs in a political space, it's even more difficult to address because, again, as Sandra mentioned, the reputational impacts, the image of wanting to present a strong face as a political leader and the feeling that a sexual assault or rape can undermine that. So there's a double confidence barrier, I would say, in overcoming that hurdle. There's also a barrier in working with many national police forces in many countries around the world. Police services are often under-trained or unaware of how to respond to sexual violence crimes. They can retraumatize the victim. In some cases, they can even punish the victim. We've heard cases of victims coming to security forces and then actually being imprisoned or otherwise. So it's a very difficult thing to overcome. I think that in building trust, educating security forces, first of all, working with them to understand the nature of these crimes, to understand how to work with survivors of this, and also to understand the provisions that exist in legal systems around the world to address it, is important because by doing so, you can help build confidence that survivors can take their issues to security forces and seek justice. I think there is absolutely agree with everything Gabrielle said, but also to, you know, the political reality, unfortunately, in a number of countries around the world, not just in Africa, but around the world, is that, you know, rape as a weapon of political context, sorry, or conflict has certainly become more prevalent and more visible. The issue that we've been faced with, the question from our colleague in Harare, is how do you address it? And I suspect that in most cases, if it's a wide-scale use of rape in the political arena or in conflict, then you have to have some kind of a national process. For addressing it through a transitional justice process of some kind. And I think in many cases, again, in Africa and elsewhere, what we're finding is all too often the issues that women wish to have highlighted through political transitions and new political settlements, including mass violence that they might have faced, rarely get put on the table. Women aren't there in the first place. And that's another sort of consequence of this violence against politically active women, is that just at the point when you need more women to be present and visible in order to strengthen peace processes and to ensure that the political settlement is indeed inclusive and democratic, because of the violence that they faced, either individually or collectively, they are even less likely to step forward. So again, this issue of the violence that women face individually and in a generalized way is absolutely fundamental, not only to the moment, and Gabriel talked about the electoral cycle as being a moment, but also to the long-term development of democratic practices and integrity in many, many societies. So thank you for asking the question. It's a horrendous one, and it's a painful one, but the range of ways to address it will be from the individual case-by-case process as IFES supported in Zimbabwe, but also through much bigger political processes around justice and reconciliation. Absolutely, legal and structural reform in the country. Absolutely. You must embassy Harari. Do you have other issues you would like to raise or a question for our panelists? Yes. I'd like to invite Sally to offer her question to our panelists. Hi, my name is Sally Nube. I'm from Women's Coordination of Zimbabwe International Network of Women's Rights Organizations and Activists. My question is what practical institutional mechanisms can women's rights networks or coalitions put in place to ensure that women's rights organizations have capacity for technical and operational to respond to political violence situations pre-during and forced election? So I think, I mean, if I understand the question correctly, you're asking about what technical support and capacity building can you actually access in order to be able to develop. Yes, I can see you nodding there in order to be able to work on this locally. Well, I think the focus also is on rapid response. Rapid response to those who have experienced political violence. How do you develop exactly the organizations to provide rapid response to those individuals? Thank you. So at heart, and I hope that I try to make this clear. At heart, this is an issue of violence against women, and it is in that respect no different to all the other forms of violence that women face. The key issue that we found with the political women or women who are politically active is the point that both Gabrielle and I have flagged, which is the general view of a political actor is one who is strong and tough. And therefore, it goes against the ability for women to speak about this very key vulnerability that they face as women first and to then reveal that in the political space becomes problematic. So I think the first thing is to ensure that the women's rights networks, the domestic abuse networks, all those networks that are already working to support women who are facing violence from intimate partners as well as in other areas of their lives. All those networks need to be, if you like, attuned and made more aware of the fact that just because a woman is politically active does not mean that she's invulnerable to these sorts of threats. So that's the first piece. I think the second piece is, again, as with all violence against women, we need to develop stronger reporting mechanisms for this. And so that building the case file, if you like, of reported incidents allows the issue to be presented in ways that can then lead to various forms of change. We've done lots of work with political parties. The violence women face within their own parties is extraordinary. And the Inter-Parliamentary Union has looked at violence in parliaments. Some of the things that go on in parliamentary buildings, not only to members, but to workers in the parliamentary buildings are illegal, pretty much, anywhere else in the same jurisdiction. And so there are lots and lots of gaps in law and administrative practice that we could also follow up on and think about. Great. I certainly agree. And if I could just add to that as well. As I started by saying when we talked about the characteristics of this violence, it's a very complex and multifaceted issue, and the responses to it are equally multifaceted. What we're seeing often in terms of this violence is that women don't often document it in a way that can be brought to justice. So by helping women who experience this violence to document any evidence they have of it, proof of it, whether that's online violence and taking screenshots or recording user names or otherwise, creating the legal justification for prosecuting these crimes is significant. Recognizing them as crimes and working with the legal system to respond to them adequately and very quickly. Working with electoral security forces. This is something we don't think of very frequently, but electoral security planning should be gendered and gender should be taken into account when any electoral security plan is developed. So working at the front end to prevent this violence in that space. Equally raising awareness of it amongst key populations, making sure that political parties have a zero tolerance policy in place, making sure that journalists know how to report on it and document it. And then various tactics for dealing with the online face of this issue as well. One of the most exciting strategies that I've encountered in the recent years to deal with the online aspect of this is what we call bystander intervention. Bystander intervention is a tactic where, you know, if you imagine being on a street corner and seeing a conflict escalating between two strangers, the most immediate impactful thing you can do is to step up and try to deescalate that situation by talking through it and online space is no less significant. So when you see a conflict brewing, when you see sexualized, gendered violent attacks occurring against political women, learning how to step into that space and to deescalate, to deflate, to counter-dict the nature of that hateful speech occurring is really important. And there are training tools for that. And it's significant to raise that issue both amongst women as well as men. And working with men who are allies or champions of this, especially in online spaces with tactics such as bystander intervention can be a very effective rapid response mechanism. Thank you so much. Now let's take some questions from our viewing groups. A viewer in Eswatini asks, how can we detect and respond to more subtle forms of harassment that can be equally discouraging for women who might seek to run for political office? I'd be interested to know what the colleague from Eswatini means by subtle forms. I think these microaggressions can happen in very many and varied ways. And if you go online, you can find interesting clips of how women's microphones are turned off when they are trying to speak in a council chamber or in a parliament. I'm not sure whether that's subtle or not, but that happens too. I think if you're talking about what happens in the private spaces, again, it's very difficult to get at that. But I think what we're trying to do through some of the work we generally do around democratic engagement is provide people with an understanding of their rights and the protections that they should have. So, for example, in a number of recent elections in one country, apparently women were being threatened with divorce if they did not vote in a certain way. In another country, not in Africa, in another region of the world, we know that women in, I think, five provinces, women's voter registration cards were actually seized from them by their husbands or significant males in their families. The question is, these are infringements of rights regardless. And I think what we need to do is try and strengthen people's understanding of their rights and the protections that they should be able to access in order to allow them to vote in their own conscience free from threat or fear of reprisal as they use their civil and political rights in their interests. A question we just received from Botswana. Sexual exploitation is an issue within politics in Botswana. What are the ways the U.S. government can actively engage with NGOs, non-governmental organizations, and governments to address this issue? Well, I'll speak to that briefly in terms of how sexual exploitation can be a form of violence against women in politics on the continent and elsewhere. And this is something that we saw in Zimbabwe and in other research around the continent, but journalists, for example, female journalists are often the objects of sexual exploitation when they are engaging in political reporting. In the IFAS report that I referenced earlier, we found cases where female journalists reported having exciting professional opportunities to report on high-profile political stories. But when they did so, they found that they were being threatened or pressured by colleagues, by editors, and otherwise into sexual acts and into favors. And so we need to understand that these women who are providing a critical perspective on politics in their countries and who are also part of the political dialogue more broadly by reporting on these things from their particular angles can be marginalized because of issues like sexual exploitation. So again, these need to be recognized. We need to understand that these are criminal acts, that they are, as NDI has said now, for years at not the cost of doing politics, and that they need to be stopped at an institutional level, at a professional level within the organizations that employ these women and these men and elsewhere. And the U.S. government can provide a significant impact in responding to these issues. Again, by understanding that violence against women in politics, that women's rights through the political process are not second-tier rights, that these issues must be addressed in the way that every other form of rights violation that exists during political processes needs to be addressed and by holding to account, starting with education and going through legal responses as necessary. A viewer at U.S. Embassy in Abuja asks, how can men support women's political participation? Should a man's support be at the background, or he should be at the forefront of the struggle for women? Great question. I'm tempted to start my answer to this one with a great sort of British saying that turkeys don't vote for Christmas. And at some level, we have to understand that if more women are going to step forward, frankly, some whole lot of men have got to get out of the way. And this is not easy for men to really kind of embrace. And certainly, political men and men in politics, men with political power, they are the most empowered men are basically on the planet. So, you know, you're dealing with politics which is almost the temple to masculinity. And you're asking men to, if you like, cede not only their power, but their privilege in order for women to take their rightful space. We're not saying we're going to replace all men, but we need to replace a lot of them, you know, need to kind of move out of the way and let women take the space that they should. After all, you know, it is supposed to be about parity. And as some of you will know, Davos, the World Economic Forum, has said that at current rates of progress, it's going to take 107 years, 107 years to reach political parity between men and women. So we can't wait that long. Now, if you're asking me personally whether I think a whole lot of men are going to be able to, you know, engage with this, I'm not sure. But the issue is the research that people like Gabriella are doing is increasingly showing that a broad diversity of voices of women, of young people, you know, 75% of all parliamentarians are male and 60% of them are over 50 years of age. So a whole lot of young people are not even involved in politics before we get on to various minorities, religious, ethnic, sexual minorities, disabled and so forth and so on. So, you know, the political realm is being held by a very small cater of people who are largely male and largely old men. And we need to persuade them that actually it's in all our best interests for them to seed some space and allow women to come through. Of course, it is the case, and you know, our colleagues in Nigeria know this absolutely, that in terms of things like money, access to the media and the networks of patronage that dominate politics in many, many countries, breaking through that, you almost have to either become like them or certainly have the relationships with that patronage network that allows you to break through as a woman. But at some point in time, we need to take the opportunities perhaps that come about with transitions to break through and kind of disrupt some of those networks in order to get more women to take centre stage. So if you're asking me, are they going to step aside? Are they going to be, you know, hugely helpful without a nudge or two? The answer is no. But we have the tools in which to engage them. And I think there are so many more people who are understanding the benefits of more inclusive politics that, you know, what they say, the arc of history is with us. Thank you. Can I also add just one more point on that one? I agree with Sandra. This is certainly a huge dynamic and a very challenging one. I think there's multiple answers to this question as well. There is an issue of seating space. There's also an issue of transforming it in an opening political space. I believe that the political space is broad enough to encompass voices of all people that come to it with this correct mentality. A mentality that isn't about excluding, marginalising, coercively repressing voices, but that sees an opportunity to transform political space into a more equal one. And I believe there are an infinite amount of seats around the table available to men, to women that share that perspective. And that's what we need to strive for. So it's a multifaceted question. A question from the Seychelles. What kind of mechanisms can a small island state such as the Seychelles put in place to fight against social media harassment of women in politics? I'll leave that to Gabrielle. So social media is a challenging thing, of course, because it doesn't necessarily restrict itself to borders. We see attacks on social media go viral very quickly and spread regionally or even internationally following diaspora populations, following other factors. Likewise, we see it being spread offline as well. Something that could initiate in an online space can jump to the radio, to the television, to more traditional media forms and reach into rural populations as well. So the response for a small nation or for a larger nation might be somewhat similar. Certainly there's work on working with the actual platforms themselves to address this issue and I think that that is happening at a global level these days, although it could certainly happen more quickly. And again, awareness raising I think is a really significant, a really significant thing. Understanding that hitting a like or retweeting something just maybe it was funny, maybe it's, I don't know, it made you have some emotion very quickly in that moment. For an individual person, that's a small act, but when you multiply that by dozens or by hundreds of times, it becomes a form of violence against the person who is being targeted by that and it becomes a deterrent for women that might be inspired to participate politically. And so having an awareness of the impact of our own actions, having an awareness of the impact of every like, of every retweet that we make is really important. Understanding how to recognize disinformation and misinformation. We see the deep fakes, as we call them, this digital manipulation of videos and images, particularly attacks women because of the sexualized nature of so much of this violence and the reputational factors. And having an educated population that understands how to recognize these things that questions things that don't seem quite right. Working with media to fact check and to correct these things quickly. There are so many different ways to respond to this problem and a smaller country with a smaller population perhaps may have more access to civic education or to outreach within that within that population. Thank you. A viewer from Eswatini asks, running a political campaign is expensive. Women's economic position often leaves them disadvantaged in this space. What can be done to financially support women candidates? This is one of the big questions and there are again no easy answers to this at all and it's going to be very dependent on the laws around campaign financing in different countries. The responses range from if in a country there is state funding of political parties, then you can actually, in some countries we know, even on the continent, there's been very successful action to require a percentage of that state funding to go towards women in the parties. So that's one mechanism. Where you have no state funding, then the issue of how you raise money is a challenge and particularly in countries where the population base is not necessarily a very wealthy one. What we can say is that women also have difficulty in asking for money. It's not something that we do easily. So, as I said, there's no easy answer to this and I think the issue of how you manage this will be very dependent. In some countries we have seen things like the savings and loans clubs forming themselves into support groups to provide finance for women candidates in their areas and so forth and so on. So I'm sorry but no easy answer for you but we could probably have a separate conversation on that to dig deeper into what might be possible in Eswatini. Right. A viewer in Abuja, Nigeria asks, how can we balance religion with women's political participation since women are believed to be subordinate in some sociocultural settings with strong religious beliefs and traditions? Sandra, would you like to respond to that one? Oh, Gabrielle, I love you. Always giving me the easy questions. Yeah, Nigeria, thank you. When we do our work at NDI we look at three levels of issues that impact on women's ability to participate. One is their individual capacity. Can the woman do what she needs to do to be politically active? Then there's the institutions. Do the laws and the regulations allow the woman to be politically active? And then the third one of course is the sociocultural environment. Is the environment permissive to allow women to be in leadership roles? And there are still many, many sociocultural environments where that is not easy. I think increasingly fewer where it's completely impossible. We know that there are women who have taken a brave stand to be gender non-conforming with regards to their sociocultural backgrounds. Many places, traditional and religious leaders, are surprising us with their willingness to take a new view. But it's a process of dialogue and a consistent engagement to try and influence these norms. And norm change is usually glacial. Every now and again you get a big breakthrough and a big step up. But the issue is to look for those who are willing to hear and lead on a reform agenda that really, again, is to the benefit of their whole community. And that is something that we will just have to keep striving on. Brilliant answer, Sandra. And just to add to that, I think you're spot on. Gender is a social construct that evolves and changes over time. And working with actors that are part of that change is a key way of addressing it indeed. Nigeria is a perfect example. You have regions in the North where women's political participation is less than 10% in some cases. Whereas in other parts of the country it's much, much higher. So it is an evolving, complex society that is changing every day. And I think that we see that women's political participation is a key part of that change. We have quite a few questions in the queue, so I wanted to make sure that everyone gets the chance to have their question answered. And I love all of the discussions, but if we can keep them as concise as possible. A viewer in Abidjan Koteva asks, could quotas help ensure women are represented in political decision-making processes and lead to legal reforms that will increase women's participation in politics? Short answer is yes, quotas generally do increase the number of women in politics. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are more influential, but it means that women's perspectives on all range of issues are more likely to be heard and presented when more women are actually participating. A viewer in Esotini asks, how can we address sexist comments that are made by opponents? We are told that we are too emotional and not rational beings. How can we educate the masses to know that these statements are demeaning? Again, by showing through example, I think certainly calling it out, denouncing a decreasing tolerance for this type of comment online, being effective and conscientious citizen bystanders in online conversations and not allowing those comments to go unnoticed and accepted in online spaces is a short answer to that question. A viewer in Lusaka, Zambia asks, I belong to the movement called Girls Gone Political and want to know what can be done to better support and strengthen women's political networks. The UN Women has just launched the action, what they're calling the action coalitions, to take forward the agenda of women's empowerment and one of them is investing in feminist movements and women's leadership. And I think for a while now, some of us have been very concerned about the lack of resources going to women's movements. The good news is, and this is a very short answer, that there are new mechanisms, global mechanisms that are really targeting small women's rights organizations. And the thing to do is look out for opportunities to plug into those. And actually going into the global mechanisms, a viewer in Durban, South Africa asks, what structures are there at an international level that are meant to address issues of violence against women in politics? Does this become an issue for the United Nations? Absolutely, and it's something that the United Nations has taken a real note of in very recent years. The notion of violence against women in politics has gained international prominence, I would say in the past decade, to the point where it is now recognized as an international human rights violation by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. It has been addressed in the General Assembly and there's a growing body of norms and of responses to it at the international level. Those need to be strengthened and enforced and adapted by different countries as we go forward, but it is certainly an issue of international concern that has reached the UN level. Giovanni? Giovanni, to add to that, you know, because we sit and can look at it comparatively, we know for example that the Organization of American States has a very strong focus on this issue around women's rights in politics. We know that one large party international actually had its summit in Africa and we have the Nairobi Declaration, which for that particular group of political parties, that has a very strong message around zero tolerance for violence against women in politics. So as Gabrielle said, this is definitely hitting the big international infrastructures are definitely taking the issue on. From the American space in Kano, Nigeria, a viewer asks, terrorism and conflicts causes intimidation, fear and increases economic hardship for women. What can we do to support women in politics in the face of terrorism and conflict? That one's for you, Gabrielle. Sure. Well, we haven't had much of a chance to talk about the women peace and security agenda, and I think this question is a good opportunity to talk about that. Violence against women in politics is deeply connected to women peace and security, which in the region in Kano, quite particularly as well as in many other parts around the continent, terrorism is certainly a key factor in peace and security issues. We need to understand that violence against women in politics needs to be addressed as part of that agenda. For one, because the political process doesn't end at the end of a negotiating table. It continues through those transitional elections and beyond, and we know that women are being particularly targeted in that. We know that by not talking about the problem, we're overlooking addressing a key form of gender-based violence. And we also know that women who participate actively in very public leadership profile roles are often targeted by this, and that includes women who are engaged in conflict negotiations and peace negotiations. So in every action we take on the women peace and security agenda, we need to integrate this issue and to make sure that we're responding to it across the board. So in dealing with terrorism and response to this, women need to be a part of those solutions, and to be a part of those solutions, they need to be able to do that securely. A viewer in Eswatini asks, how do we ensure that the education system triggers the notion of equality, free thinking and leadership to instill a culture of tolerance from a very young age? Great question, and I think we are all increasingly aware of the fact that we have been raised with particular gender norms, and we're probably raising our own children with the same kinds of gender norms. I like to think that my son is a more evolved form of human being than my brothers, but I'm not sure. The key point that has been raised here, and it's really important, is that for young girls in particular, the gap that opens up between them and their male peers really starts to open up at about the age of eight, eight years of age, and we see that through puberty boys' horizons go like this and girls' horizons go like this. And so by the time we get to sort of early adulthood, the die has been cast in so many ways, and it's not altogether clear across the world that the next generation is actually more equitably minded than the last. So education is key, and getting the right pillars for, as our speaker said, free thinking and tolerance into the education system is, of course, a political action, and it was going to require people to engage with the politics of the education system, with the curricula and the teaching who gets to be a teacher. What sorts of behaviors are allowed by teachers are the schools going to be integrated and mixed. These are all big issues of decision making, and again, if we're going to get better at that, we need a wider circle of people engaged in the discussion to arrive at the best decisions. A viewer in the Seychelles asks, what can the media do to highlight the specific issues of barriers for women in politics, such as violent, harassment and the like? Again, we need to end the double standard in election reporting and in political reporting. We need to stop understanding the barriers, the scandals, the violence that occurs around these processes, as only those that are pertinent to men, but recognize that those that impact women are of equal import and deserve equal reporting. So that's the fundamental principle. Beyond that, we need to understand how to educate journalists to that. We need to develop audiences that are engaged in informed audiences that have created demand for that type of reporting and hold journalists to account and hold other publishers to account in creating an equal and equitable reporting structure around politics. A viewer in Durban, South Africa asks, how do we engage local women who are pioneers of primary health and other important topics at the local level in the development of public policy? Hugely important. I think both Gabrielle and I would say that many, many, many women around the world come into politics through a local issue and through activism at the local level. And I'm not saying, as some people would, that women should start there in order to train themselves. After all, men go straight to being president and stuff. But we do know that it's a really important route to political action through that local level. And what I would say is there are many mechanisms and many tools out there that support participatory budgeting and participatory engagement with councils and municipal authorities. There's also the issue, though, that people need to focus on ensuring that the councils and municipal authorities are able to receive the engagement and really able to take on the demands from the populations. But the local level is hugely important and connecting women from the local level to the public policy space is key. It's something we do a lot of around the world. We have time for one final question, and I'd like to take it back to U.S. Embassy Harare for that. I'd like to invite Rega to ask her question. My question is... Rega, introduce your name and your organization. My name is Rita Nyongpinga. I come from Female Prisoner Support Trust. We have discussed all these issues that women face. My question is what are the best practices that we can use so that we all speak with one voice? Because these are common issues that are being raised across the globe. That's a great final question. And I'm sure we both have responses to it. Responses are universal, but need to be adapted to every country where they occur. Because again, this is a problem that has a very local and a very culturally specific context to it. We need to advocate on this issue. We need to educate and raise awareness around it. We need to have adapted and responsive policies, legal practices and implementation of those practices as well. And we need to protect the victims of this. We need to be supportive. We need to stand in solidarity. And we need to understand that this is not something that can be accepted as part of any democratic or political space. And within my role as the moderator, I'll take the opportunity to ask one final, final question. Sandra, can we talk about the next steps? What can our viewers do and what actions can they take to address the problem of violence against women in politics? Well, I think Gabrielle already started to bring that to a close there with a range of issues. I think documenting the report, we've talked about that a lot. There's the CEDOR mechanism. I think most countries report on CEDOR. Are there ways in which civil society activists can do shadow reporting on some of these issues? Build networks and resources of solidarity. Again, Gabrielle talked about that. This is an issue of violence against women. And it is in the same pantheon of violence against women that all women in all countries face. After all, the WHO says one in three of us will face personal violence in the course of our lives. And from my point of view, and I suspect from Gabrielle's too, I think the most important thing for us is to ask you, please do not let this stop you from stepping forward. Make informed choices about how you do so safely and there are again many tools out there that will help you make an informed choice about how you enhance your safety and security physically and online. But don't let it stop you or your daughter, your sister, your mother, your best friend getting involved in politics. Because without it, actually we all lose. All our societies, all our communities, all our economies lose if women are not appropriately represented in the democratic space. So that's what I would ask you. Thank you. Unfortunately, we are almost out of time. Thank you so much to Sandra and Gabrielle for your time and participation. And thank you to our live viewing group at Harare. I would also like to thank our viewing groups gathered at American Corner Bulawayo Zimbabwe, U.S. Embassy Kigali Rwanda, U.S. Embassy Addis Ababa Ethiopia, U.S. Embassy Brazzaville Republic of Congo, U.S. Embassy Yaunde Cameroon, U.S. Embassy Gaborone Botswana, U.S. Embassy Monrovia, Liberia, American Center Lusaka, Zambia, American Corner Zinder, Niger, Rosa Parks American Corner in Burundi, Bujumbura, U.S. Embassy in Mumbai, Esatini, U.S. Consulate Durban, South Africa, Seychelles Citizen Democracy Watch on Seychelles Island, American Spaces in Nigeria, including Abuja, Bauti, Joss, Kano, and Sokoto, American Space Sao Paulo State, Brazil, and the Binational Center in Linz, Brazil. So all our viewing groups, thank you again. Your participation today made this a great program. In closing, I would like to say that preventing violence against women in politics requires a coordinated effort and the steadfast dedication of everyone. Men, women, community leaders, business leaders, and government officials to create an enduring impact. We hope our discussion provided our viewers with additional knowledge and tools that can help you address underlying risk factors for gender-based violence in politics and elections in your communities. We also hope you continue to discussion online using the hashtag, not the cost, and in person in your respective countries and communities. On behalf of the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues, thank you and goodbye.