Interfaith collaboration can reduce gender inequality

Religious fundamentalism threatens sustainable development

(LWI) – Collaboration between The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) has helped address gender inequalities and violence against women, delegates at the ongoing United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women heard.

“The interfaith collaboration between LWF and IRW is a concrete example of articulation that goes beyond advocacy platforms. It plays a key role in addressing gender justice challenges,” Brazilian pastor Rev. Cibele Kuss said.

She was speaking at a side event of the Commission on the Status of Women on the role of faith-based organizations in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by world leaders last year.

Kuss and other LWF delegates at the 60th Commission on the Status of Women session, 14-24 March, are advocating closer collaboration between the UN, civil society and faith-based organizations on issues that affect women’s empowerment and sustainable development, the theme of this year’s meeting.

The UN Population Fund, World Young Women’s Christian Association and the United States Federation for Middle East Peace joined the side-event.

IRW gender advisor Sharifa Abdulaziz noted, “faith is an integral part of the social fabric and is considered by many as the major driver for change in local communities.”

A 2014 cooperation agreement between the LWF and IRW currently facilitates joint support to Nepalese who lost homes and livelihoods in the April 2015 earthquake and to Syrian refugees living in Jordan.

Kuss added that UNFPA supported the 2015 interfaith advocacy initiative, 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence, which highlighted child marriage, its impact on girls’ education and the role of faith in these challenging realities.

Kuss, who is executive secretary of the Lutheran Foundation of Diakonia in Brazil and an LWF Council member, said racism, religious intolerance and other forms of discrimination enhance and reproduce gender inequalities in her country.

Racism, religious intolerance, and other forms of discrimination enhance and reproduce gender inequalities.

Groups targeted by injustice mainly include African descendants, indigenous people, and individuals and communities of different sexual orientation. She noted the escalation of violence toward these social groups is fueled by members of parliament who support Christian fundamentalists in the country’s changing religious landscape.

Dr Azza Karam, senior advisor for Culture at UN Population Fund, said the situation in Brazil reaffirmed her conviction of the need for mutual sharing of experiences about religious intolerance, particularly with a South to South perspective.

Concluding, Kuss said the 2013 LWF Gender Justice Policy helped the Lutheran Foundation of Diakonia develop a similar one in 2014. “It has been a major tool in ensuring that our own policies as faith-based organizations are based on gender justice.”

Photo gallery: Working with women and communities on the margins

The 60^th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, met 14-24 March in New York, under the theme “Women’s empowerment and sustainable development.” It reviewed the Sustainable Development Goals agreed by world leaders last September.

Representatives of LWF member churches spoke at some of the commission panels, where they discussed ways in which faith communities help reduce gender inequalities that perpetuate women’s marginalization and exclusion in sustainable development.

Delegates from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Congo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Simalungun Protestant Christian Church in Indonesia, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America shared insights from their work.

14-24 March 2016

Photos: LWF/ Nicholas Jaech

A women’s crisis center in Indonesia

Around 50 women seek help every month at the Sopou Damei Women’s Crisis Center in North Sumatra, Indonesia. Executive director Rev. Julinda Sipayung says she receives women experiencing gender-based violence and/or violence perpetuated by an intimate partner. Simalungun Protestant Christian Church pastors and psychologists offer trauma counselling and legal advice. The center also provides microcredit loans for women’s economic empowerment.

At ‘Shobi’s Table’ in Minnesota

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor Rev. Margaret Kelly presented “Shobi’s Table,” a ministry “by, of and for folks in St Paul, Minnesota, living on the margins of our community.” It includes a mobile food cart and works with those struggling “to find a home in traditional congregations.” The Sustainable Development Goals, she says, highlight the brokenness in the world and offer indicators for healing, which people of faith can provide.

Going back to school in Malawi

In Malawi, the church encourages women who dropped out of secondary school to resume education. Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi administrator Mabel Madinga says up to 50 women have a safe place to study, do their homework and concentrate. They can also enroll in the micro-financing program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi that encourages farmers and livestock keepers to adopt diversified methods to improve family nutrition and income.

Bringing legal protection closer to victims of sexual violence in DRC

Each month, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Congo women’s coordinator Rev. Solange Yumba Wa Nkulu offers counseling, healthcare and legal protection to around 10 recent female victims of violence in eastern DRC. She says most women are not aware that the constitution provides for prosecution of sex offenders. “With education, they are better equipped to prevent circumstances of sexual assault, and seek legal advice.”