Project dldl/ድልድል Annual Conference 2022: Domestic Violence-Gender-Faith

Bringing together religious and secular stakeholders from Ethiopia, the UK and internationally to explore integrated and decolonial responses to domestic violence cross-culturally

Organiser: Project dldl/ድልድል and EMIRTA/እምርታ Research, Training and Development Institute

Background

Project dldl/ድልድል is a project funded by UK Research and Innovation and is dedicated to the development and strengthening of religio-culturally sensitive domestic violence alleviation systems in East Africa and the UK.

The Project dldl/ድልድል Annual Conference 2022, which is co-organised with project partner EMIRTA/እምርታ Research, Training and Development Institute, will bring together religious, secular, government and non-governmental stakeholders working to address domestic violence in Ethiopia and internationally to facilitate the communication of new evidence and to promote cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral knowledge exchange and collaborations. It will also provide the platform for the project team, partner organisations and collaborators to share their activities, findings and lessons with a more international audience, facilitating knowledge-exchange and evidence-building.

The conference will feature numerous panels with presenters from different parts of Ethiopia and internationally, and a series of workshops delivered by international specialists from the UK, USA, Kenya and other countries. The conference will culminate in a livestreamed roundtable discussion which will bring prominent feminist and religious organisations, government officials and international specialists to explore a better integration pathway for religious, feminist and state resources to respond to domestic violence in Ethiopia and internationally.

Conference Programme (short)

A brief Conference Programme is included below. The same can be downloaded also as a PDF in table format.

Day 1 – November 11th

Welcome from the organisers: Project dldl/ድልድል and EMIRTA/እምርታ

Welcome from Keynote Speaker Yilikal Shiferaw, Commissioner at the Ethiopian Orthodox

Tewahedo Development and Inter-Church Aid Commission (EOC DICAC)

Welcome from Keynote Speaker Mandy Marshall, Director for Gender Justice for the Anglican Communion, UK (recorded)

PANEL 1: PREVALENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, RISK FACTORS AND AFFECTED GROUPS IN ETHIOPIA

“Survival analysis and associated factors of time to first intimate partner violence after marriage among ever-married women in Ethiopia”, Birye Dessalegn Mekonnen and Yibrie Azmeraw

“Trends, Demands, and challenges of protecting Domestic workers: lesson from selected places of Ethiopia”, Tirsit Sahledengil

“Prevalence of Child Abuse and Associated Factors in West Shewa Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia”, Abera Getachew

“Wife Beating: My Observation as Neighbour in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia”, Sisay Kinfe

“Vulnerability of Female Domestic Workers vis-à-vis Intermediate (Brokers) and Parents’ Related Factors: The Case of Hosanna Town”, Lombebo Tagesse

Refreshments

PANEL 2: SURVIVOR EXPERIENCES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, FAITH AND IMPLICATIONS FOR SURVIVOR SUPPORT SERVICES INTERNATIONALLY

“Domestic Violence: The lived experiences of Bangladeshi Women in the UK”, Aysha Ahmed (virtual)

“Understanding Domestic Violence and Abuse in UK Muslim Communities: a Multiperspective IPA Approach”, Rahmanara Chowdhury (virtual)

“Honour-based violence in Life writing: Halima Bashar’s Tears of the Desert and Fadumo Korn’s Born in the Big Rains: A Memoir of Somalia and Survival in focus”, Solomon Girma

“Suicide and Domestic violence”, Erminia Colucci

“Supporting African Christian Women Who Have Experienced Intimate Partner Violence in England: Service Providers’ Perspective”, Pamella Shelley (virtual)

Lunch

PANEL 3: INDIGENOUS AND COMMUNITY-LED RESPONSES TO GENDER INEQUALITY AND GBV

“Leveraging Existing Social, Cultural, Linguistic and Religious Assets and Values to Promote Gender Equality in Ethiopia”, Mulugeta Seyoum, Tadesse A Zerfu, Rahel Kassa (conversation)

“Integration of Indigenous Women’s Customary Institutions in Fighting Against Gender-Based Violence among the Oromo Communities, Ethiopia”, Muluken Kassahun Amid

Refreshments

Workshop 1: Invisible Chains: From Domestic Violence to Coercive Control, Lisa Fontes (virtually)

Workshop 2: Visual methods for activist research, Erminia Colucci

Concluding remarks by organisers

Film screening of ‘NKABOM: A LITTLE MEDICINE, A LITTLE PRAYER’ (presented by Producer Erminia Colluci)

Day 2 – November 12th

PANEL 4: THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL RESPONSES TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND GENDER INJUSTICES IN FAITH COMMUNITIES

“Early Treatment of Q 4:34 within Tafsῑr”, Mahmoud Ali Gomaa Afifi (virtual)

“A Theological Critique of the Feminism Movement”, Selam Reta

“The Need for Inclusive Justice: Philosophical Appraisal on the Nature of Justice Addressing Intersectional Discriminations in Ethiopia”, Eyasu Barento

“The project dldl/ድልድል approach: Employing St John Chrysostom’s homilies on marriage, conjugal cohabitation and domestic violence to build Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo clergy’s preparedness to respond to domestic violence”, Romina Istratii and Henok Hailu (presented by Henok Hailu)

Refreshments

PANEL 5: THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS MEDIATORS IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE EXPERIENCES AND RESPONSES

“Domestic Violence (also named domestic Abuse or family violence) Focusing on Black African Families and the role religion plays in the African contexts”, Amma Anane-Agyei (virtual)

“Christianized traditional marriage counsellors in Zambia as unexplored gatekeepers for gender transformative approaches in GBV prevention?”, Benjamin Kalkum

“The EOTC-DICAC programme approach to GBV prevention and response”, Bantamlak Gelaw

PANEL 6: FAITH-BASED AND CULTURE-SENSITIVE INTERVENTIONS TO RESPONDING TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND OTHER FORMS OF GBV/VAWG IN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES

“Promoting a Unified Response to, and Prevention of Sexual and gender-based violence in Emergencies (PURPOSE) with Faith”, Zayid Douglas, Jacqueline Ogega and Dolphine Kwamboka

“Engaging Faith in Higher Education to Address Gender-Based Violence”, Punita Lumb and Savroop Shergill (virtual)

Sugira Muryango: A community-integrated approach to family violence reduction and ECD promotion in Rwanda”, Jess Littman, Gabi Phend, Stephanie Bazubagira Magali, Sarah K.G. Jensen, Vincent Sezibera, and Theresa S. Betancourt (virtual)

“Empowering Women and Girls, Transforming Communities, Promising and Best Practices to Address Gender Based Violence in Kenya: Reports from an Organizational Programme”, Grace Bonareri Mose

Lunch

Group activity to explore conference themes

Workshop 4: Evaluating domestic abuse programmes: choosing a research design, Gene Feder

Workshop 5: Incorporating evaluation when designing effective domestic violence prevention programmes, Parveen Ali

Refreshments

ROUNDTABLE

The roundtable discussion will bring prominent feminist and religious organisations, government officials and international specialists to explore a better integration pathway for religious, feminist and state resources to respond to domestic violence in Ethiopia and internationally. The roundtable will be recorded and disseminated via media outlets in Ethiopia and the project’s media platforms internationally.

Closing remarks by organisers

Media interviews

End of Conference

Registration

The conference will take place in Inter Luxury Hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with international guests travelling to Ethiopia and many international speakers presenting online to achieve two-way knowledge exchange and learning with their Ethiopian counterparts. In accordance with the project’s commitment to making accessible all its activities and outputs, most conference sessions will also be made available online.

Virtual participants must register on Eventbrite to receive the meeting link closer to the date.

In the case that Eventbrite is not accessible in your country, please email soasflf@soas.ac.uk to have you registered as a virtual attendee.

About the organisers

Project dldl/ድልድል is a research and innovation project dedicated to the development and strengthening of religio-culturally sensitive, domestic violence alleviation systems in Ethiopia and the UK. The project seeks to promote a decolonial approach to addressing domestic violence in religious communities by engaging substantively with the religio-cultural belief systems of the victims/survivors and the perpetrators, and by understanding how these belief systems interface with gender, material and psychological parameters to facilitate or deter domestic violence.

Working with Ethiopian collaborators, and rural and urban communities, the project seeks to generate new research and intervention approaches, and to apply this knowledge to inform strategies for integrating in domestic violence services and better-supporting affected ethnic minority and migrant populations in the UK. The project is funded by UKRI under a Future Leaders Fellowship (Grant Ref: MR/T043350/1) and is supported with additional funding from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation (Distinguished Scholars Award 2019).

Read more about Project dldl/ድልድል on the project’s official website.

Follow Project dldl/ድልድል on LinkedIn, Vimeo and Soundcloud.

EMIRTA is an Ethiopia-based research, training, and development consultancy firm established with the mission of providing high-quality, evidence-based, demand-driven, and value-focused development solutions for a holistic human development around the world. The firm is founded on the principles of trust, honesty, fraternity, partnership, customer satisfaction, and value for money. With a diverse mix of top-notched, committed, and pragmatic leaders and professionals in Health, Education, Social Sciences, Engineering and Agriculture, EMIRTA aspires to ensure a prosperous, human-centred, and inclusive future in the world, particularly in Africa.

EMIRTA seeks to provide state-of-the-art training, research, project management, and development consultancy services across many areas of development. The centre’s business model is rooted in its ability to combine context and indigenous knowledge with the best available evidence from contemporary science and technology to provide the best customer experience. The mission of EMIRTA is to help enable positive impact by providing exceptional and reliable services that meet or exceed expectations. EMIRTAenvisions becoming a leading training, research, and development firm in East Africa by 2035 in areas of Health, Education, Social Sciences, Agriculture, and Engineering.

Read more about EMIRTA on the centre’s official website.

Follow EMIRTA on LinkedIn.