PSH Launches Love Shouldn’t Hurt Campaign

By Joyce Mukucha

The Population Solutions for Health (PSH) with the support from Embassy of Sweden has officially launched the Love Shouldn’t Hurt Campaign, a national branded movement which aims to reduce violence among partners, engage male peers to act as change makers and increase the number of men and women who believe intimate partner violence (IPV) should not be tolerated in their communities.

The campaign launch, with its major thrust of attaining a Gender Based Violence (GBV)- free Zimbabwe comes at a time when GBV cases are staggering in Zimbabwe with 1 in 2 women reporting ever having been abused by their current or former partners and home is becoming a dangerous place for women in the country.

Representing the Swedish Ambassador to Zimbabwe during the launch in Harare on the 17th of November 2021, the Deputy Head of Mission for the Embassy of Sweden, Professor Berthollet Kaboru applauded PSH for developing the campaign which helps people to rethink the notion of love, to reframe the belief that beating someone and inflicting pain is a sign of love and discipline.

He said it was an honor to be launching a campaign to prevent GBV during this month of 16 Days of Activism against GBV highlighting that the Sweden Embassy remains dedicated to supporting programmes like these that focus on curbing GBV by creating positive conflict resolutions ways that engage male peers to act as change makers who prevent violence in the home.

“The Embassy of Sweden is committed to supporting programs that advance gender equality to reduce gender-based violence. In Zimbabwe, the most dangerous place for a woman is in their home. Violence against women caused by husbands, and boyfriends is the most prevalent form of GBV in Zimbabwe. Approximately 1 in 2 women reports having ever experienced emotional, physical, or sexual abuse from current or former husband or boyfriend. This means that women in relationships are being hurt by the very person that is supposed to love and protect them.

“It is disheartening that even as we are gathered here this evening, somewhere in Zimbabwe a woman is being physically or sexually abused and beaten. It is essential now more than ever to impliment campaigns to reduce incidence of intimate partner violence which has been increasing since the Covid-19 lockdown measures where couples must spend more time indoors and economic pressures on the household have increased,” said Professor Kaboru.

Underscoring on the increased stories of women who have sadly been maimed or lost their lives due to GBV, Professor Kaboru said the campaign was crucial in as much as engaging men and boys to change their bahavior and remains a key component of the GBV response.

“We need men to be in the forefront of creating and maintaining this dialogue to help perpetrators of violence to adopt positive conflict resolution and anger management skills. We need these conversations to occur among men themselves to help perpetrators of violence to understand the pain that they cause through GBV and that there are always alternatives to using violence.”

Professor Kaboru also thanked all the celebrities that are helping to ignite GBV conversation through music, sport and the church.

“The work you are doing is the beginning of an Anti-GBV movement that will create dialogue with men and transform perpetrators if violence into champions in their own communities.”

In her speech which was read on her behalf by her deputy Jennifer Mhlanga, the Minister of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Honourable Sithembiso Nyoni who was the guest of honour appreciated the Embassy of Sweden and all partners that joined their hands and worked together to make the campaign a success explaining that prevention plays a central role in efforts to eradicate and remove the root cause of GBV.

“As a Ministry we would like to acknowledge that the event today would not have been possible without the support from the Embassy of Sweden. We also thank and appreciate the organisations that worked together to bring this campaign to life; Population Services International, Population Solutions for Health and all the GBV multi-sectoral implimenting partners. We look forward to the growth of the Love Shouldn’t Hurt movement and to attaining a GBV-free- Zimbabwe,” said Minister Nyoni.

She also alluded that the Love Shouldn’t Hurt campaign launch comes at an ideal time, when the world is about to commemorate the 16 Days of Activism against GBV and through it, the nation continue to add its voices in the call for a violence free community.

“A community without GBV is a thriving community, people do not lose productive time because they are suffering from the effects of abuse, people are happy and focused on making their community a happy place, unintended pregnancy and contracting of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases following sexual violence I’d prevented, and both men and women contribute to the development of the community.”

PSH Executive Director, Dr Noah Taruberekera said coming up with the campaign was not an easy road as he extended his gratitude to Embassy of Sweden and other partners and participants especially the perpetrators of violence who allowed them into their homes and their private lives.

“Our journey in developing this campaign was long and challenging. Development work was delayed by the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. This meant that for a long time, our teams could not go out into the field to conduct the human centered design interviews that were critical to us. Despite these challenges, we are proud of our ability to quickly adapt and produce this campaign. We would like to thank the Embassy of Sweden for their patience with us while we navigated the challenges brought about by Covid-19.

“This campaign is groundbreaking in engaging men in an non-stigmatizing manner. We hope that through this campaign, men will start to ask themselves how they can contribute in their own spaces to prevent violence I’m the home. We hope that men will look back at the promises that they made when they first met their partners and feel their pain,” said Dr Taruberekera.

PSH Social Marketing Director, Kumbirai Chatora highlighted that they learnt that perpetrators resort to violence because they do not know how else to communicate their frustration or discipline with many of them talked about ‘communication’ as an alternative, but only after the fact.

“We realized that they don’t know what healthy communication looks like or have the tools to engage in healthy communication. Based on these insights, we asked ourselves 3 key questions: how can we reframe what love looks like in a healthy way?, how can we reinforce the idea that is not ok for a man to discipline his partner? and how do we equip men with the skills to resolve conflict without resorting to violence?

“Together with the Embassy of Sweden, and our Agency partner, Ogilvy Africa, Kenya we finally landed on the overarching theme; Love Shouldn’t Hurt to reframe what love and discipline look like in a healthy way. The LSH slogan shows love in a symbolic way of two hands joining together. Rudo Harurovi in Shona and Uthando Alubhuhlungu in Ndebele is premised on the insight that perpetrators view IPV as a form of discipline or even a sign of love and do not realize the pain they inflict,” she said.

The campaign, she added, also includes some print materials which focus on redefining love by encouraging men to raise their hands to love not to beat and some generic radio spots. In addition to the campaign, there are videos which can be used to trigger conversations on GBV in the community.

“We also have two community interventions called Business Network and the Neighborhood Watch. Through the Neighborhood Watch we are encouraging communities to come together to create committees that can alert other community members of violence. The Business Network encourages me in communities to come together to learn about small business as we learnt that idleness, drug abuse and lack of cash is another trigger of violence.”

Meanwhile, a representative from Fathers Against Rape, a GBV partner, Alois Nyamazana said his organisation was proud to be part of the great work that PSH is doing to curb violence stating that as a partner, they will remain committed in creating solutions to eradicate the social ill.

“Our vision is to see a society that is free from gender-baded violence. We will always strive to promote responsible fatherhood and we believe should be part of the solution,” said Nyamazana.

The campaign launch was also graced by different implimenting partners including Musasa Project, Adult Rape Clinic, and PSI, among others.

The campaign also involves five musical celebrities who worked tirelessly with PSH to create a movement of men against GBV and to promote the campaign to their fans on their social media sites namely Winky D popularly known as “Gaffer”, Ammara Brown, Seh Calaz, Roki and Holy Ten.

Present at the launch was Winky D, Ammara Brown and Holy Ten. In his solidarity remarks, Winky D said, ” I’m in solidarity with the survivors of GBV. I want to assure them that they will not walk alone as long as my music is playing.”

These celebrities have also developed some jingles which are playing on radio and videos.