Preventing violence against women: - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Preventing violence against women:

An evidence-informed perspective

Claudia García-Moreno

World Health Organization

57

th

Commission on the Status of WomenSlide2

What do we know?

More data than ever before, particularly on intimate partner violence

The causes of partner violence are multiple and intertwined – factors interact at multiple levels to place women at risk of abuse

More

knowledge of risk and protective factors and of promising approaches to prevention

Interventions can reduce acceptability & levels of violence over programmatic timeframes

At country level, multiple entry points for interventionSlide3

Many risk factors for intimate partner violenceSlide4

Intervening at different levels

Individual characteristics and behaviour

Choice in partner(s)

Couples & families

Socio-economic conditions

Laws & Policies

Communities

Countries

Cultural &

Social Gender Norms

Transforming harmful gender norms:

1. Mass Media

2. Community mobilization

3. Peer and participatory education with men and boys.

4. Gender equitable attitudes in schools

Empowering women:

1. Integrated gender, microfinance & HIV training

2. Securing property rights

3. Conditional Cash transfers

Promoting GE laws & policies:

1. Laws against violence

2. Training law enforcement

3. National standards on post-rape care

4. Reducing access to alcoholSlide5

What works to prevent partner violence?

Review evidence of association and promising interventions to address:

Social norms around gender and violence

Women's economic and social empowerment

Childhood exposure to violence

Harmful alcohol use

Legal and justice system interventionsSlide6

1. Changing Social Norms

Evidence of link

acceptability of violence

male authority/dominance over women

Promising interventions

Awareness campaigns – e.g. “We Can” , "It's Not Ok"

Small group transformational change efforts, often supplemented with community-based activities – eg Stepping Stones; Programme H; IMAGE programme

Social norms marketing and “edutainment programmes” e.g. Soul City, Sexto Sentido; Breakthrough’s “Bell Bijao” Campaign

Population level social change programming e.g. SASA!Slide7

Examples of prevention interventions

Community focused

Soul City

SASA! Uganda

Both sexes:

Stepping Stones, S. Africa

Sexto sentido, Nicaragua

Men

Program H (Brazil)

Yari Dhoshi (India)

We Can

WomenIMAGE SisterActProgram MSlide8

2.Women’s social & economic empowerment

Evidence of link

Secondary education protective

Employment, ownership or cash or assets may decrease risk

Some effects context specific, depending on factors related to partner and/or broader social norms

Promising interventions

Evidence that combined livelihood & empowerment programmes achieve impact (e.g. IMAGE, South Africa)

Some evidence that economic empowerment interventions reduce violence, although context specific Evaluation of impact of cash transfer programmes on partner violence are just beginningSlide9

In South Africa combined micro-credit & gender training intervention (IMAGE) cut levels of intimate partner violence

by a half over 2 years

Among participants:

Past year experience of IPV reduced

by 55%

Households less poor

Improved HIV communication

Among younger women:

64% higher uptake HIV testing

25% less unprotected sex

Pronyk et al.

The Lancet Dec. 2006, Pronyk et al AIDS 2008Slide10

3. Childhood exposure to violence

Evidence of link

Strong evidence that child abuse (physical and/or sexual) and witnessing marital violence increase risk of perpetration

Poor parenting and gender socialization help reproduce negative child outcomes (including partner violence) across generations

Promising interventions

Parenting programmes shown to reduce negative child outcomes, including precursors to partner violence, in randomized studies

Current programmes target harsh parenting, child maltreatment and exposure to parental violence (home visitation) Slide11

4. Harmful use of alcohol

Evidence of link

Not sufficient or necessary, but where present it increases frequency and severity

Promising interventions

Early identification and brief counselling by health workers has been shown to reduce harmful drinking

Reduce alcohol availabilityRecent studies from the US and Australia have found clear link between outlet density and domestic violenceMeta-analysis of 122 studies confirms that increasing alcohol taxes decreases harmful drinking

Community based interventionsAlcohol misuse treatment has been shown to reduce frequency and severity of partner violence Slide12

5. Legal and justice system interventions

Women’s police stations

Mixed evidence

Informal justice and rights-based initiatives

Novel strategies being applied in southern countries: mobile courts; working with village dispute resolution systems need to be evaluated

Protection Orders

Research from the United States suggests that protective orders do reduce repeat violence for some victims some of the time; no studies have evaluated protective orders in southern countries

Pro-arrest policies

Arrest may have a modest effect on recidivism for some men, especially first-time domestic violence offenders with no other history of criminal

conduct No evidence outside of high-income countriesSlide13

Recommendations

We need:

national strategies that are tailored around a local understanding of the problem

to implement what works and theoretically-informed best practice, using all entry points possible (building on strategic opportunities of all agencies to achieve impact)

to escalate intervention research

to develop services for victims in tandem with rolling out prevention interventions

to ensure coordination across strategies for maximum impact

High level political support globally, nationally and within communities is essentialSlide14

Violence against women

is preventable.

Let's do it together!! Slide15

Sources and acknowledgements

WHO/LSHTM, 2010 Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women. Geneva: WHO

http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/en/index.html

Heise

L, 2012 What works to prevent partner violence

http

://

strive.lshtm.ac.uk/resources/what-works-prevent-partner-violence-evidence-overview

Acknowledgements Lori Heise

and Charlotte Watts, Centre for Gender Violence and Health, LSHTM