Beyond courts: Structural energy, housing, and community support needed to heal gender‑based violence survivors
Original framing: “Gender-based violence survivors need more than justice: four keys to recovery” — The Conversation - Global
Survivors from low‑income, migrant, and disabled backgrounds consistently report that lack of affordable power limits their ability to seek help and rebuild livelihoods. Grassroots collectives, such as women’s energy cooperatives in Kenya and community shelters in the Philippines, illustrate how marginalized groups can drive systemic change when given decision‑making power. Their testimonies expose the inadequacy of top‑down policies that ignore lived realities.
A systemic view of gender‑based violence reveals that energy deprivation, insecure housing, and economic marginalisation are co‑produced by historic colonial legacies and contemporary neoliberal policies.
Indigenous and cross‑cultural practices demonstrate that community‑owned energy can restore safety, dignity, and resilience, while scientific evidence confirms the efficacy of integrated interventions. By foregrounding marginalized survivor voices and employing trickster insights to destabilise siloed justice narratives, policymakers can craft future‑oriented, rights‑based frameworks that simultaneously address trauma, climate risk, and socioeconomic inequity. The actors—governments, utility cooperatives, survivor-led NGOs, and cultural custodians—must coordinate through transparent hubs to translate these insights into durable, equitable action.