Giving Compass' Take:

• Seema Jalan shares the story of Amanda Banura, a Ugandan woman who is a survivor of gender-based violence working to protect others from the same suffering. 

• How can funders identify and support community leaders like Amanda Banura who can do more with additional support?

• Learn about the relationship between gender-based violence and migration. 

By 23, Amanda Banura of Uganda has overcome more than many people do in a lifetime. At a young age, Amanda was raped by her father’s friend.

The first time, I didn’t know [what was happening],” she said. “This guy came and found me sleeping. He just took off my bedsheet and started touching me.…Then he told me, ‘If you talk, I’m going to beat you up. And if you tell your father, I’ll kill you.’”

As we’ve recently been hearing from so many women around the world, Amanda was a victim of gender-based violence, one of the most pervasive human rights abuses globally that knows no social, economic, or geographical bounds. Worldwide, an estimated one in three of us will experience physical or sexual abuse in our lifetime. Gender-based violence occurs in many forms – including an intimate partner or domestic violence, sexual violence, and threat and coercion – and directly impacts our sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Read the full article by Seema Jalan about gender-based violence from the United Nations Foundation.