August 2001 Insights Gender Violence Special Issue

Sites for Sore Eyes

The issues around gender violence in schools have been considered a taboo area for discussion until recently. Excellent material is now beginning to emerge alongside related information on HIV/AIDS and adolescent sexual health, violence against women and girls' education.

A good springboard for information is UNICEF, www.unicef.org, which has great links, research reports and other information. Information linking sexual harassment in schools to closing the gender gap in education can be found at the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) site: www.FAWE.org/contents/newslet83f.html.

'Premarital sex and school dropout in Kenya' is an interesting piece of research available at: www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/124.pdf.

Check out PANOS, www.panos.org.uk, for materials covering a range of gender issues including 'Young Lives at Risk' www.oneworld.org/panos/briefing/young_lives_at_risk.htm and an article examining sexual harassment in schools in Kenya, 'Tested to their limit', under the 'Women and Health Section' on the Panos site.

The Medical Research Council in South Africa, www.mrc.ac.za, has research papers on adolescent sexuality and violence against women and girls.

Excellent links on adolescent sexual health can also be found at www.unescobkk.org/infores/arh-web/links.shtml.

Several reports examine issues of gender violence and HIV/AIDS, including: 'Dying of sadness: gender sexual violence and the HIV epidemic' at www.undp.org/hiv/publications/. UNDP's Men, Masculinities and Development site has relevant links to men's roles in ending gender violence at www.undp.org/gender/programmes/men/men_ge.html. The role of men and boys in ending gender-based violence will soon be examined at a new but still unfinished web site: www.whiteribbon.com and by UNICEF at www.unicef.org.

A site for young people, www.ippf.org/mezzo/, provides magazine style support and information, providing guidance on love and relationships, offering online discussion on friendship, sexuality, contraception, and sexual and reproductive health.

Further links can be found at: www.unifem.undp.org/, www.tarsc.org, www.wcwonline.org/harassment/index.html, and www.cel.mcgill.ca/csaemp/default.html.

Caroline Nicolson
Centre for International Education
University of Sussex
UK
c.nicolson@sussex.ac.uk