Description

Lesotho ranks 139, out of 189 countries, in UNDP’s 2019 Gender Inequality Index, slightly better than it performs in the overall 2019 Human Development Index (169 out of 189 countries, improving to 165 in 2020). However, Lesotho’s Gender Inequality Index scoring has been in decline since 2014.

 

The GBV situation in Lesotho is characterized by stigmatization of GBV survivors, who are blamed for the violence they experience, even among women, who show high levels of acceptance of Violence Against Women and Girls. Women and girls often remain silent because of the fear of revictimization as well as their individual feelings of shame and embarrassment of their experience of violence. At the same time, there is lack of private and public discourse on GBV that could stimulate a change in social norms that perpetuate this type of violence.

 

 Lesotho has one of the highest rape rates in the world (82.68). Reliable statistics on GBV, femicide and homicide is hard to come by, and yet reports of husbands beating and in some extreme cases decapitating their wives’ bodies are a regular. Marriages are in trouble as many wives separate from their husbands because of violence. Rape of women and girls are also reported to be on the rise.

 

UNDP is therefore looking for a Local Consultant to carry out An Assessment of Scale and Impact Gender Based Violence (GBV), Homicide and Femicides in Lesotho.

Associated Document

  Tender Notes

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