Promoting Gender Equality to Prevent Violence Against Women

This briefing document focuses on violence against women by intimate partners. It examines the relationship of gender inequalities to gender-based violence and finds evidence that school, community, and media interventions can promote gender equality and prevent violence against women by challenging stereotypes that give men power over women. It then describes some of the promising methods of promoting gender equality and their effectiveness. These include:

• School-based interventions - working with schoolchildren before gender attitudes and behaviours are deeply ingrained. The most widely evaluated are interventions that attempt to create equal relationships and change attitudes and norms towards dating.
  
• Community interventions - trying to effect change in individuals and whole communities by addressing gender norms and attitudes. Community interventions can include methods to empower women economically and to enlist men as partners against gender-based violence.
• Media interventions - organising public awareness campaigns using mass media to challenge gender norms and attitudes and try to raise awareness throughout society of violent behaviour towards women and how to prevent it.

Not discussed at length, but noted as important, are government interventions to promote gender equality, such as: laws and policies on local, national, and international levels that criminalise violence against women (e.g., intimate-partner violence, rape in marriage, and trafficking for prostitution); laws and policies that support and protect those affected (e.g., implementing protection orders, child and family protection units, specialised response teams, women’s shelters, and family courts); improving the response of police and other criminal justice officials towards cases of violence against women; and improving women’s rights in marriage, divorce, property ownership, and inheritance and child support.

School-based Interventions

School-based interventions include examples such as: the Safe Dates programme in the United States and the Youth Relationship Project in Canada. Safe Dates is a school and community initiative for eighth and ninth grade girls and boys (13-15-year-olds). It includes a ten-session educational curriculum, a theatre production, a poster contest, training for providers of community services, and support services for affected adolescents. A randomised controlled trial of the programme found that (compared to members of a control group) participants reported less psychological abuse and sexual and physical violence against their current dating partner one month after the programme ended and four years later. As stated here: "Dating programmes are more effective if they are delivered in multiple sessions over time...and if they aim to change attitudes and norms rather than simply provide information. Furthermore, there is some evidence that for men, programmes presented to mixed male and female groups are less effective in changing attitudes than those presented to all-male groups."

Community Interventions

Community interventions to reduce gender equality usually attempt to empower women, strengthen their economic position (through, for instance, microfinance schemes), and change gender stereotypes and norms.

South Africa’s Intervention with Microfinance for AIDS and Gender Equity (IMAGE) serves women living in the economically poorest households in rural areas, and combines financial services with training and skills-building sessions on HIV prevention, gender norms, cultural beliefs, communication, and intimate partner violence. The programme also encourages wider community participation to engage men and boys. It aims to improve women’s employment opportunities, increase their influence in household decisions and ability to resolve marital conflicts, strengthen their social networks, and reduce HIV transmission. A randomised controlled trial found that, two years after completing the programme, participants reported 55% fewer acts of violence by their intimate partners in the previous 12 months than did members of a control group.

A group of Grameen Bank and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) micro-loan recipients in Bangladesh were interviewed retrospectively. "Their answers revealed that they were less than half as likely to have been beaten by their partners in the previous year as women living in villages with no exposure to such programmes .Women were protected from intimate partner violence through their ability to bring home a resource that benefited their partners, which improved their status in the household." Results are tempered by observations that lenders (not associated with these programmes) can exploit borrowers and place them in vulnerable positions. Also, where assets are newly acquired, new conflicts can arise along gender and marital lines. However, programmes like IMAGE, as stated here, may help prevent a gendered backlash by engaging men and boys.

The Stepping Stones programme, a life-skills training intervention implemented in Africa and Asia, uses a variety of methods, including reflection on one’s attitudes and behaviour, role-play, and drama to address issues such as gender-based violence, communication about HIV, relationship skills, and assertiveness. Thirteen three-hour sessions are run in parallel for single-sex groups of women and men. These are complemented by mixed peer group and community meetings. A randomised controlled trial in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa with 15- to 26-year-old participants indicated that a lower proportion of the men who had participated in the programme committed physical or sexual intimate partner violence in the two years after the programme, compared with the men in a control group.

In Uganda, Raising Voices and the Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention run a community initiative for males and females designed to challenge gender norms and prevent violence against women and children. This includes: raising awareness of domestic violence and building networks of support and action within the community and professional sectors; community activities such as theatre, discussions, and door-to-door visits; and using radio, television, and newspapers to promote women’s rights. A review of the programme after two years suggested that all forms of intimate partner violence had decreased in the community. However, 8% of women and 18% of men reported an increase in physical violence against women following the introduction of the programme. This backlash was attributed to men feeling threatened by the empowerment of women.

A number of programmes work specifically with male peer groups, addressing values and attitudes associated with violence against women, redefining concepts of masculinity, and engaging men in violence prevention. Some of these are Men As Partners, which uses a 5-day workshop format, and Brazil’s Program H, which uses video, role-play, and discussions in weekly sessions for 6 months, combined with social marketing campaigns. In a Program H evaluation, compared to the control community, at six months, participants in the two communities that received one or both of the interventions were less likely to support traditional gender norms than before the intervention. When used in India, Program H participants reported that violence against a partner in the previous three months declined significantly in the intervention groups, compared to the control group.

Media Interventions

"Media interventions use television, radio, the Internet, newspapers, magazines and other printed publications to reach a wide range of people and effect change within society. They aim to increase knowledge, challenge attitudes and modify behaviour. Media interventions can also alter social norms and values through public discussion and social interaction. Media campaigns have proven successful in increasing knowledge of intimate partner violence and influencing attitudes towards gender norms, but less is known about their ability to reduce violent behaviour, as it is difficult to measure potential changes in levels of violence associated with media interventions."

This document suggests that successful media interventions begin by understanding the behaviour of their audience and engaging its members in developing the intervention. Its example of a project that understood its audience and engaged audience members is Soul City in South Africa, a series of radio and television episodes that highlight intimate partner violence, date rape, and sexual harassment, among other social problems. The series is accompanied by information booklets that are distributed nationally. One study reported an association between exposure to the Soul City series and changes in knowledge and attitudes towards intimate partner violence. For instance, at follow-up, the percentage of people agreeing with the statement “no woman ever deserves to be beaten” had increased from 77% to 88%, while the percentage disagreeing with the assertion "women who are abused are expected to put up with it" had increased from 68% to 72%.

In Nicaragua, a mass communication strategy named Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales (We are Different, We are Equal) has promoted social change to improve sexual and reproductive health. The strategy aimed to empower women and young people to take control of their lives and to promote women’s rights and gender equality. Activities included a national television series (Sexto Sentido, or Sixth Sense), a radio talk show for youth, and community activities such as training workshops for young people and youth leadership camps. The television series was a weekly drama with issue-based storylines. Using a sample of Nicaraguan youth (13-24-year-olds), an evaluation found that the strategy was associated with a positive change in attitudes towards gender equity, among those exposed to it.

The document concludes that while some school-based, community-based, and micro finance-based interventions are showing signs of effectiveness, further rigorous evaluation is needed that uses measures of actual violent behaviour as an outcome rather than improvements in attitude or knowledge (where the relation to violent behaviour may be unknown). Also, further research is needed to explore how possible negative effects, such as backlash, might be overcome. "When gender roles become more flexible, most women enjoy greater power, status and economic independence and the threat of violence against them decreases. It is important, therefore, to engage both men and women and boys and girls in interventions that promote gender equality and prevent violence against women."

[Editors note: Footnotes have been removed throughout.]