In Balochistan situation is worse, the tribal society is essentially patriarchal, with strictly defined gender roles. Within these, men traditionally occupy the public sphere, while women’s roles are confined within the reproductive sphere of the home. This creates conditions where women’s mobility is restricted The unequal power relations result in relegating women to a subordinate and subservient position, thereby excluding them from serious decision-making at several levels. In the ultimate analysis, all

these factors impact women’s own perceptions, as well as their knowledge base and confidence in the area of public affairs.

SEHER’s project on Ending Violence against Women and Gender based Discrimination, from its very inception focused the most vulnerable segment of society, the women. The project was initially started in Tehsil Karkh in District Khuzdar, a very remote and under developed area with very conservative tribal traditions. As SEHER started establishing its roots and developed links with the community particularly with the most vulnerable segment of society, the project staff faced immense security threats. They were detained and immensely forced by henchman of the tribal chiefs and influential personalities to leave the area. Hence SEHER shifted its project to Sibi District.  

District Sibi drives influence from the adjoining districts i.e. Naseerabad, Jaffarabad and Jal Magsi which shares border with province Sindh known for its exploitative and violent customs against women.  On other hand Sibi also sustains the strong tribal influences of the districts Dera Bugti and Kohlu which are completely under the control of the tribal chiefs with hardly any state intervention. SEHER conducted baseline survey and identified five villages with poor socioeconomic indicators with women facing worst forms of discriminations and violence.

Violence and poverty had strong nexus, violence was more visible in those areas/villages/households where poverty was more. Therefore, the project kept in view to address the social, political, economic and Gender issues in the selected areas. To achieve the desired result two fold strategies were applied. Firstly direct intervention with communities, lawyers, journalists, police force and civil society organizations and secondly linkages building of village groups with line departments. i.e. Government departments, banks and umbrella organization etc. In this regard following activities were carried out in the span of three years.

Formation and Strengthening of village women’s group
In order to enable women to have cohesive measures against their collective problems 6 village women groups were formed in Chandia, K. Usmani, Gadi Mehalla, Raza Machi and Shudanzai. Formation of women groups in the face of strict cultural practices and inculcating the conceptual footings of the intervention was definitely a very difficult task.

Enhancing the knowledge base & capacity of the village groups
To ensure the sustainability of the process the groups were capacitated through capacity building trainings that ultimately enhanced their knowledge base. The trainings focused sensitization of the male groups regarding the women’s rights and adopted assertive techniques to empower women groups. The training course followed the following path of strengthening.

Awareness of the Social Issues and Enhancing Intellectual Depth
Under the camouflage of tradition there existed brutal culture of violence and gender inequity that ranged from merciless beating to karokary  and to early child marriages. SEHER made focused efforts through various trainings on socially significant topics such as Gender in Islam, CEDAW, Muslim Family Laws, Perverted Cultural Practices and vision of a happy family to both Male and Female Village Groups. 
  
Enhancing the Access to Social Services
Lack of access and control over the resources was one of the major factors of violence. SEHER delivered a great number of sensitization trainings to support system to extend their services to these groups without leakage. The trainings resulted in development of strong linkages of groups with livestock, agriculture, education, health departments and local government representatives that ensured their services to the groups.

Enhancing the technical knowledge and practical skills
Hegemony of those who control the power remains over the powerless; unless they develop technical knowledge and/or practical skills required in their daily routines. In order to reduce the technical influence of Men technical trainings were imparted to the groups to let them come of out of the vicious cycle.

SEHER believes, consciousness must be stipulated with technical knowledge and practical skill. Particularly women are far behind in technical knowledge and practical skill, which on one hand could supplement in breaking their dependency on their male counterparts while on the other hand lead them respond the violence against them issues and live a life a dignity.

Enhancing condition and position of the women
Condition and position of women became indispensible when it came to empowerment of the women and/or ending violence against women. Focusing one and ignoring the other or comparing any of both will never produce the desired result. Without enhancing the “position” of women, the improved condition serves as incentive to their male counterpart. In this regard SEHER conducted numerous brainstorming sessions, based on “division of labour” exercise but also started literacy classes for women so they could have regular opportunity of having an environment in which they could reflect on all those aspects which are hurdle in enhancing their position.

Enhancing the Economic Footings of the villagers
Experiences reveal that poverty and violence has strong nexus. The proportion of Poverty and violence go side by side. Hence SEHER used enhancing and strengthening of the economic footings of the village groups as strategy to address the violence against women issues in the targeted villages. In this regard the following interventions were made: 

Saving by Male and Female groups
Saving is one of the essential tools to improve the economic situation of the groups. SEHER mobilized and motivated both men and women groups to save, with intention and vision of improving their economic situation and addressing the prevailing violence against women in their houses as well as in the communities. Communities in general and groups in particular saved reasonable amount as saving.

Provision of Matching grand
To encourage the groups and expedite their saving, matching grants were given which enabled the target groups to increase their saving pace and made them realize the difference between “soft money” and “surplus leakage through credit” SEHER provided them matching grant throughout the period

Investment and Self Employment
Amount of saving and matching grant needs proper investment to lead towards self employment, which remains a dream with out proper skill training and understanding of the items which can attract the market. In this regard SEHER imparted various skill trainings to the women and men of the target villages, so they could be able to increase their income which could lead them towards addressing the violence against women issues in their homes and communities. Most important aspect of the enhancement of economic footing (saving, matching grant and skill development/investment) is making women “earning member”  of the family, because this is the only way to end violence against women in the short run and their empowerment in the long run:

Developing Support Mechanism
Development initiatives in general and violence against women in particular require support mechanism to strengthen the initiative in the short run and ensure the sustainability of the process in the lon run. SEHER focused this crucial aspect from the very beginning and developed the following support mechanism on ground to address violence against women issues:

Apart from innumeracy and literacy, the centres had formal topics on Violence against women such as Legal status of property possession, required age according to the law for marriages, families’ laws and concepts of gender based discriminations

Establishing and strengthening of CBOs Network
The district partners mainly the Community Based Organizations were given orientations on regular intervals thereby enhancing their understanding regarding the common issues of women in their area. The CBOs were sensitized and motivated to establish a network in order to collectively address the EVAW as the main agenda. The network was the given the name of ‘Hani Network’, named after a woman from Sibi who lived in 17th century and was victim of brutal violence by the tribal chiefs.

The Hani network was facilitated and guided by SEHER in planning, documenting their activities and maintaining financial record. The CBOs in the network were facilitated in developing proposals. The CBOs were capable enough to address the different issues and approach the donors on their own for any resources required.

The capacity of Hani Network members were enhanced to plan, organize and later evaluate larger scale activities and work in a network. The Hani Network became fully functional entity in the district and the people approached them with various issues regarding EVAW.

Once CBOs/members of the network went through series of brainstorming, conceptualizing sessions and review of their own existing organizational stand points,. SEHER rigorously focused these member of the network. Imparted them various training related to gender, women empowerment, violence etc and extended financial support to initiate activities in their area of jurisdiction for ending violence against women. In this regard Hani Network (members) have done the following activities for EVAW in their areas:

One of the most important aspects is that these HN members did not only performe individually in their own jurisdiction, but they also organized combined activities to demonstrate the collective strength of the civil society for ending violence against women.

Formation & Strengthening of Police Forum
Violence issues cannot be addressed in the absence of a sensitive law enforcing agencies. Through project intervention and continuous interaction SEHER was able to form a Police Forum at Sibi consists of 12 senior police officials and its sustainability was ensured through the notification by the DPO. The Police Forum had been very effective in providing its due support to victims/survivors of violence

•             First time in the history of Balochistan, any Police Forum is formed and notified. This forum did not only birth various more forums for addressing the EVAW issues in Sibi, but also played a pivotal role as support mechanism for survivors of the violence
•             Police Forum paid mandatory visits to SEHER’s targeted villages, delivered orientation to the villagers that in which situation they should inform police forum so support could be extended to them.
•             Women group member who was beaten by husband, informed police forum, PF arrested him put him the lockup for whole night, in the morning wife came and guaranteed and released him. After that he was so nice with his wife.

Formation of Lawyer’s forum
Initially in the project the legal Aid was being provided to women from SEHER’s Lawyer’s Forum in Quetta but through trainings and sensitization sessions with the lawyers of Sibi led SEHEr to form Lawyer Forum in Sibi for addressing violence against women issues. Lawyer Forum, consist of 5  senior Lawyers, extended their full support through out the period and fought hundreds of cases of violence against women.

Formation of Journalist Forum
For mass awareness raising SEHER through sensitization and mobilization formed a Journalist Forum at Sibi consisting of 10 senior journalist and president of the press club. The forum projected and generated awareness regarding EVAW through effective reporting. Sensitization of the journalists had been instrumental in creating awareness among the people regarding the common form of gender discrimination. Apart from immediate reporting of the violence cases (usage of gender sensitive language) all together the member of journalist forum has written number of articles on ending violence against women in their respective newspapers.

Capacity Building of Key Stakeholders on EVAW
Experience shows that such deep rooted and traditionally accepted issues like violence against women does not only need collective but also collaborative efforts to ensure the positive change, because efforts in isolation are unable to make any difference in such a gigantic problem. Hence SEHER applied multi prong strategy to address the violence against women. In this regard, a part from rigorously focusing the villages and district key players, key stakeholders at provincial level are also focused and their capacity is built to extend their support to the efforts of ending violence against women. Some of the broader efforts in this regard are given bellow:

Enabling and Rehabilitation of Women in vulnerable situation
Women are as vulnerable and exposed to the various forms of violence in state institutional ie.e. prisons and dar-ul-Aman as out of these boundaries. SEHER being right based organization, cannot ignore these institution as for as violence against women is concern. In this regard enabling environment is created and rehabilitation services are done in the following institution.

Rehabilitation Services for women prisoners and Dar-ul-Aman Inmates
Women in Jails were focused in general and in Quetta in particular. Women prisoners are kept engaged in awareness raising (CEDAW, Gender and violence Concepts) productive activities (embroidery, tailoring, Beed works) education activities (organizing events, observing 8 march, 16 days of activism, independence day and Pakistan Day), Health services (Medicare and periodic visit of gynecologist) and legal aid through out the period. These activities give birth of new hope in women prisoners and Darul Aman’s inmates . They engage themselves deeply in these rehabilitative and productive activities, which enable them to rapidly change their attitude, they stop quarrelling with each other, controlled abusive language. They also start to spend their time productively and meaningfully even habit of reading is developed in them and they requested SEHER for provision of good quality books for reading, while observing various days and making speeches for it enabled them to express their feelings and release their creativity. Some of the border intervention took place with women prisoners, Dar-ul-Aman inmates and other stockholders for ending violence against women in state institutions are given bellow: