Festival season is upon us. Hundreds of thousands of festival-goers will throng festival grounds, nightclubs, and many other entertainment venues and activities over the course of the next few months. For years, festivals, nightclubs, and entertainment events have been hubs for predators of various forms of violence, with little to no safety and security measures in place.

The SAFE Campaign is a collaborative effort spearheaded by For Equality and The Foundation for Civic Education and Social Empowerment (FOCESE) aiming to Create a safer environment for women and other vulnerable populations at festivals and events and will pull in various partners including the Malawi Government, UN Agencies, local and national level CSOs and NGOs and entertainment sector players.

The campaign will address four key issues;

Sexual violence: common festival experiences that constitute sexual violence include, but are not limited to:  sexual assault, rape, harassment, stalking, groping indecent /sexualized exposure, degrading imagery, and voyeurism.

Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault (DFSA): occurs when alcohol or other drugs are used to intentionally sedate or incapacitate a person in order to perpetrate non-consensual sexual activity.

Rape Culture: Also referred to as Rape myth acceptance, Rape Culture is characterized by attitudes and actions that deny the validity of sexual assault, victim blame, minimize the effects of sexual assault on the victim, and /or defends the perpetrator. Rape culture at festivals can include the hyper-masculinity of musical acts, bystander apathy of volunteers, and dismissive attitudes of security staff.

Lack of strong safety guidelines: Like most countries, Malawi lacks any national guidelines or even suggestions on how organizers can build sexual violence prevention into their event infrastructure, making it hard to know where to begin.

Help us change this narrative and make this a #SafeSummer. For Equality and FOCESE have teamed up to launch the #SafeCampaign (Safe Festivals and Events Campaign) which seeks to make festivals and events safer for women and other vulnerable groups.

You can join and support by:
1. Signing the #SafeCampaign Pledge here (it will take less than 1 minute of your time): Click here:  Safe Campaign Pledge
2. Partnering with us. For partnership, contact us info@forequalityafrica.org