Mozambique: UN Women and UEM Sign Memorandum

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Mozambique: UN Women and UEM Sign Memorandum

9:01 CAT | 11 Mar 2016

In File Club of Mozambique

Mozambique’s oldest institution of higher education, the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) on Thursday, through its Centre on Gender Matters (CECAGE), signed a memorandum of understanding with UN Women for the inclusion of education content that seeks to promote gender equality and the empowerment of Mozambican women.

UN Women is the United Nations body set up by the General Assembly in 2010 to accelerate the gender equality goals enshrined in UN resolutions.

The Thursday agreement, which also enjoys the support of the Japanese government, envisages courses to train students in matters of gender and social equality, which will be monitored by CECAGE and UN Women.

According to the representative of UN Women in Mozambique, Florence Raes, this agreement will allow research into the socio-cultural reasons for violence against women and for women’s inferior status to become better known, thus helping to generate solutions for these social problems.

“We are making official a partnership which has already existed for some time”, Raes said. “Our main objective is to undertake research into the masculinities which influence violence against women and girls, and thus contribute towards eliminating the socio-cultural causes behind the propagation of violence”.

She stressed that in Mozambique room must be opened to speak openly of gender related themes which have hitherto been regarded as taboo, particularly in rural areas.

Despite laws penalizing violence against women, gender based violence remains prevalent in Mozambique. According to UN Women, two out of every three Mozambican women have suffered some form of gender-based violence.