Social Enterprise Report: Addressing Gender Violence in Maldives

This report presents an analysis of a social enterprise operating in the Maldives, addressing critical social issues such as gender violence, child abuse, and the lack of women's rights. It outlines the enterprise's background, immediate and future goals, and the strategies for achieving them, including leveraging international aid and raising awareness. The report also identifies significant challenges, such as societal norms and government policies, and proposes measures to overcome them, like educating the male population and increasing female representation in politics. The conclusion emphasizes the enterprise's commitment to providing a voice for women and fighting against injustice, despite potential opposition, with references to relevant academic sources.

MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT

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Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Background story 2
Immediate goals 2
Future goals 3
Achieving set goals 3
Challenges and measures to deal with them 4
Conclusion 5
References 6

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Introduction
There are a lot of social evils and challenges in the present day world which have to rectified or
overcome to make the society a better place for the current as well as the future generation.
The manifesto is being prepared in order to highlight the various aspects of a social enterprise
starting from the inception to goal setting to goal achievement to challenges to business. A
social enterprise is a hybrid type of organisation as it normally acts within the operational
structure of a private as well as a public or non profit organisations. Maldives is a unique country
with 99% of its surface covered by water and an average 2.4 metres above sea level. The
capital city of Male is very densely populated and issues like gender violence and child abuse is
rampant. The social issue is further complicated by lack of housing facilities, drug abuse,
religious radicalisation, racism and unhealthy lifestyle. The standard of education is also not
something to boast about and corrupt government makes everything more convoluted. The
enterprise will try to act as a guardian for such people and try to provide them with amenities
and jobs.
Background story
Maldives ranks 64 in the gender inequality index and 115 in the global gender gap index.
Around 20% of women have been suffering from a lifetime of physical as well as sexual intimate
violence by their partners. It has been also reported that around 6% of women have suffered
from such violence in the past one year (Kanwal and Munir, 2015). There have been reports
which state that 6% of women have been suffering from lifetime of sexual violence meted by
non-partners. The citizens of Maldives do not understand the implications and labyrinthine
nature of child marriage which is why 4% of the women had been victims of child marriages.
Maldives, hence, does not paint a very pretty picture when it comes to women safety, equality
and opportunity. For a country to be heavily dependent on tourism, such statistical figures do
not imbue confidence in travellers, especially female travellers. According to Lama (2018), the
women in Maldives live in fear for their life in their own homes and it is shamefully reflected from
the fact that police records show that the domestic violence cases have increased from 187 in
2014 to more that 300 in 2016. Women are strong creatures. They suffer in silence believing
that it is will of God. This is not true and this is what our organisation is planning to prove to
these hapless women.
Immediate goals
The short term goals of the enterprise are:
1. One of the immediate goals of the enterprise will be to identify as well as assign value to all
the unpaid domestic work and care that women do.

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2. To provide the access to basic amenities to physical, sexual and reproductive health.
3. The enterprise also wishes to act as a deterrent to gender related violence by acting as an
active to those having abusive families.
4. Generating awareness by using paper, digital and social media platforms.
5. Setting up websites for reporting physical and sexual abuse and relaying the information to
the authorities.
6. Enabling use of information and communication technology among women to boost women
empowerment.
Future goals
The long terms goals of the enterprise will be:
1. Ensuring full and effective women participation in context of opportunities and platform to
showcase leadership at decision making in public as well as economic life.
2. Consulting with government to undertake reforms, policies and acts voicing equal rights of
women to economic resources as well as any other amenity without discrimination.
3. Develop enforceable legislation to boost anti-domestic violence and related abuse, sexual
and physical.
4. Interact with international organisations to receive funds that will help in providing women with
access to education, basic health and reproductive rights.
Achieving set goals
In order to achieve the immediate goals it is necessary for the organisation to hire women
workers who are familiar with the existing conditions of the society. These women will act as the
pillars of strength and resolution to those women who are currently undergoing violence trauma
(Iqbal et al. 2016). In order achieve the goal to provide basic health amenities the enterprise will
try to tie up with international aid agencies and the funds that will be received will be utilised for
developing the necessary infrastructure. These funds will be also diverted to pay the women
some reimbursement for their silent and unpaid work and service. As observed by El-Horr and
Pande (2016), in order to take up gender equality issue at the administrative levels of the
government, it will be necessary for the enterprise to lobby the ideas with like minded
individuals. The society’s narrative can be only challenged by conducting awareness campaigns
and providing women with a platform to raise their issues and voices (El-Horr and Pande, 2016).
Challenges and measures to deal with them
The island nation of Maldives has a history of hiding violent incidents against women. This is
because majority of the society believes that the several issues that lead to the violence need to
be kept buried within the family to make sure that reputation is of the family is not hampered in

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the society (Baudassé and Bazillier, 2014). These beliefs and existing societal norms are
primary obstacles to dealing with issues of gender related violence. The Maldivian society
always had the tendency to believe that women are supposed to be housewives looking after
their family while the male members of the family act as breadwinners in the society.
This resulted in declining efforts in pursuing education for girls. However, as noted by Nabi, Wei
and Ghous (2016), over the several decades and due to introduction of activities like universal
primary education system, it is now compulsory that all children receive education thus
improving the situation for girls to pursue education. Hence one of the measure is educating the
predominant male society so as it acknowledges women as equal members of the society. Such
beliefs have been common in almost all the developed nations and Maldives has fallen behind
the world because of the rigid societal beliefs.
It is also equally important for women to take part in the decision and policy making. A man
cannot ever understand the difficulties of being in Maldives. In order to boost gender equality, it
is critical for women to come forward willfully and take part in decision making process.
However, factually, there are very few women representatives present in the Maldivian political
administration (Heirigs and Moore, 2018). The figureheads of the government have been
predominantly males and in their administration only a maximum of 22% of the representatives
were females. In order to achieve the goal of equality irrespective of gender, it is critical to
increase the negligible number of representatives in the country.
It was reported that out of the 85 members in parliament in 2017, only 5 were women while the
rest were men. The current gender inequality in Maldives is far from being good as out three
women at least one has been a victim to sexual or physical abuse. Hence, according to Costa et
al. (2017), it is necessary to stand against such atrocities without any bias. The existing
government claims that they have a zero tolerance to violence and atrocities committed on
women and hence it is important for the entire society to invest efforts in women empowerment
and equality.
Creating awareness and implementing the acts of anti-domestic violence requires immense
support from all the citizens of the society and not just women (Klassen, 2017). It is necessary
to teach women that being abused or tolerating violence is not right irrespective of the fact that
is meted by the family or the husband. Women need to stand up to their perpetrators and
challenge the existing norms and belief system. It should be clear that people do not invest
efforts to help out others and in case of gender related people who are unaffected do not wish to
entangle themselves in such matter which makes it more significant for women to raise their
voices (El-Horr and Pande, 2016).

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The government is equally responsible for turning a blind eye to such issues in the past and
hence it is advisable to rally against the government to implement acts and legislations that help
a gender violence victim to get the justice they deserve. It is also an individual responsibility of
the citizens of Maldives to save violence affected victims as well as report such incidents to
respective authorities before the situation worsens. In accordance to Jones and Ramchand
(2016), the enterprise requires people of similar mindsets to come together to erase such a
disgusting social evil from the society.
Conclusion
Irrespective of where one stays in the world, there are always occurence of gender inequality
and gender related violence. Maldives is nothing different. The enterprise has set goals which
are aimed to provide women a voice that till now has been mere whisper. There are chances of
facing personal and proprietary threats. People who raise their voices against injustice will
always be opposed but once they are able to make their voices heard cannot be stifled or
silenced. The enterprise plans to do so without caring for rejection and opposition from the
society because it is the right thing to do.

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References
Baudassé, T. and Bazillier, R., (2014). Gender inequality and emigration: Push factor or
selection process?. International Economics, 139, pp.19-47.
Costa, J.C., Wehrmeister, F.C., Barros, A.J. and Victora, C.G., (2017). Gender bias in
careseeking practices in 57 low–and middle–income countries. Journal of global health, 7(1).
El-Horr, J. and Pande, R.P., (2016). Gender Differentials in Outcomes.
El-Horr, J. and Pande, R.P., (2016). The Context for Gender Differentials in Maldives.
El-Horr, J. and Pande, R.P., (2016). Understanding Gender in Maldives: Toward Inclusive
Development. World Bank Publications.
Heirigs, M.H. and Moore, M.D., (2018). Gender inequality and homicide: a cross-national
examination. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 42(4), pp.273-
285.
Iqbal, S., Islam, A., Ramalho, R. and Sakhonchik, A., (2016). Unequal before the law:
measuring legal gender disparities across the world. The World Bank.
Jones, G.W. and Ramchand, D.S., (2016). Closing the Gender and Socio‐economic Gaps in
Educational Attainment: a Need to Refocus. Journal of International Development, 28(6),
pp.953-973.
Kanwal, A. and Munir, K., (2015). The impact of educational and gender inequality on income
inequality in South Asia.
Klasen, S., (2017). UNDP's gender-related measures: Current problems and proposals for fixing
them (No. 220). Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth-Discussion Papers.
Lama, P.D., (2018). Gendered consequences of mobility for adaptation in small island
developing states: case studies from Maafushi and Kudafari in the Maldives. Island Studies
Journal, 13(2).
Nabi, G., Wei, S. and Ghous, G., (2016). Do we have proportionate gender in policy making? A
Study based on key Government Institutions of SAARC Region. Interdisciplinary Description of
Complex Systems: INDECS, 14(1), pp.39-51.