HY@W Coalesce One Last Workshop to Set Way Forward     

The final activity of the “Healthy Youth at Work (HY@W)” project in its consolidation phase took place in the form of a consultative workshop at the Elilly International Hotel in Addis Ababa on August 22 2024. During the half-day closing event, topical issues such as preventing and responding to the sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in the workplace were the main focus of the stakeholders to identify ways to sustain the legacy of the six-year intervention. The half-day workshop paved the way for a way forward and a sense of ownership among stakeholders. More than sixty participants represented a range of sectors, including regional and district government, factories and flower farm owners from the intervention areas.

“Gaps in the need for workplace-based interventions were identified through the survey studies at the beginning of the project, and the results of the first phase led to the extension and expansion of the intervention over the six-year period, after which it was also consolidated for a further eighteen months of intensive engagement to promote and advocate for the gender equality of young people at the workplace, focusing mainly on addressing SRH issues and the preventing and responding to SGBV,” Feyera Assefa, Country Director of DSW Ethiopia, explains the aim of the workshop in his opening remarks.

In one of its most recent news tracts, the World Health Organization (WHO, 2023) highlighted the problematic challenges in the health sector’s response to SGBV due to the inability to scale-up a comprehensive approach and the lack of health-related indicators and guidance on workplace harassment, which further slowed the pace at which the national strategic plan in Ethiopia would have been revised. 

The Ministry of Women and Social Affairs (MoWSA), a ministry closely involved in gender-related policy issues, acknowledges the existence of such challenges, including gaps in evidence-based responses to SGBV and a lack of sufficient stakeholder engagement, but in a renewed spirit of ownership. The need for a multisectoral response to SGBV must be objectively addressed going forward, said, Abdulatif Mohammed from MoWSA. 

The multisectoral approach is generally considered to be a key health-related indicator for measuring a comprehensive response to SGBV and SRH issues; its absence highlights the need for advocacy efforts such as this consultative meeting, which brought together several sectoral offices and bureaus, including MoWSA, the regional Urban Development and Housing Bureau (UDHB), Law Enforcement, and Justice Department, to participate in and observe the learning experience of the workshop. It is evident that the integrated efforts of these different sectors provide evidence of an effective response to SGBV. For instance, data released by the Oromia region’s Justice Bureau indicates that in the last year alone (2023/24), there were 825 SGBV cases, 121 incidents related to rape and 82 more cases of child marriages, according to Ejigayheu Merga of the Oromia Women and Children Bureau, who cited the Oromia Justice Bureau report. The same source has further underpinned the WHO’s earlier report on the lack of integrated efforts based on a multisectoral and multidimensional approach for a comprehensive response to the prevalence of SGBV in the workplace.

“Without the right policy tool, the prevalence of SGBV could not have been measured to the extent and magnitude as we know it is affecting our public health arena. Not to mention that SGBV is an issue that we are able to address. Nevertheless, we know that Ethiopia has amended laws and adopted several relevant public policies to prevent and address the prevalence of SGBV both in the workplace and in the mainstream, the shortcomings often lurking in the way the implementation of these policy tools are directed or guided. An integrated approach involving multiple actors from different sectors could deliver the right outcomes, guided by existing policies. Our experience over the past six years provides evidence of what the SGBV situation was like in the flower farms and factories before the workplace intervention. Cases of SGBV were rampant and unchecked. For this reason, DSW believes that a consultative workshop such as this will help to organise our common goals to further our action to improve the health and social issues of working youth. To this end, DSW will continue to push for the revision of relevant policies and is willing to work with such institutions of higher education such as the Addis Ababa University to participate in the policy review process,” said Feyera, initiating the commitment to the way forward.

Although the project will end at the end of September 2024, Healthy Youth at Work will officially close its activities with a closing workshop in due course. After six years of implementing the workplace intervention in more than twenty-two flower farms and factories, the eighteen-month consolidation phase helped to fill the gaps so that stakeholders can maintain ownership throughout. HY@W has received technical and financial support from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation.