5. What does the evidence say
Low-middle income countries
Conflicting Ineffective
Promising
Insufficient
evidence
• Men and boys social
norms programming
• Economic
empowerment &
income supplements
• One-stop crisis
centers
• Women’s police
stations
• Stand-alone Social
marketing programs
• Stand alone
awareness-raising
campaigns
• Stand alone
Personnel training
• Community
mobilization
• Empowerment
training for women
and girls or women
and men
• Economic
empowerment +
gender equality
training
6. What does the evidence say
High-income countries
Conflicting Ineffective
Promising
Insufficient
evidence
• Health sector/
psychosocial
• Perpetrators’
programs
• School-based
interventions
• Shelters
• ICT services
• Stand alone justice &
law enforcement
• Stand alone
Personnel training
• Stand alone
Awareness campaigns
• Victim Advocacy
• Home visitation &
health worker
outreach
7. What works to reduce VAWG
Programs preventing violence:
Include women and men
Engage entire community
Combine multiple approaches
as part of a single intervention
(group training, livelihoods,
social communication)
Address structural drivers of
violence, such as social norms
regarding the acceptability of
violence
Community-based interventions
that:
Engage many stakeholders at
different levels (community men
and women, police, teachers,
leaders, etc.)
Use many strategies: public
events, group training, and
advocacy campaigns
Have high-quality
communications materials such
as posters, street theater, radio
and television programs
8. Characteristics of Committed Methods For Intimate partner
violence (IPV) prevention in all settings
• Involve multiple sectors (health, education, justice, etc...) at
multiple levels (national, local)
• Challenge the acceptability of violence, while also addressing
underlying risk factors, such as poverty, gender norms
• Support the development of new skills (communication and
conflict resolution)
• Integrate violence prevention into existing development
platforms
• Promote engagement of all members of communities
9. Recommendations for future VAWG
More interventions in the primary prevention of violence
Standard methods and indicators
Improved coordination and cooperation among key
actors
More rigorous evidence on all types of VAWG from the
Global South, exploring issues of cost, sustainability, and
scalability of the intervention
Documentation of promising VAWG intervention
adaptations in other settings
11. Thank you!
References:
1. World Health Organization. 2013. Global and regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and
health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence. Geneva, Switzerland: World
Health Organization.
2. Arango D, Morton M, Gennari F, Kiplesund S, Ellsberg M. 2014. Interventions to prevent or reduce violence
against women and girls: a systematic review of reviews. Washington, DC: World Bank.
3. Ellsberg M, Arango D, Morton M, Gennari F, Kiplesund S, Contreras M, Watts C. Prevention of violence against
women and girls: what does the evidence say? Lancet 2014; published online Nov 21.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61703-7.
4. Garcia-Moreno C, Zimmerman C, Morris-Gehring A, Heise L, Amin A, Abrahams N, Montoya O, Bhate-
Deosthali P, Kilonzo N, Watts C. Addressing violence against women” a call to action. Lancet 2014; published
online Nov 21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61830-4.
Editor's Notes
I’d like to acknowledge my co-authors in this study - Mary Ellsberg, Matthew Morton, Floriza Gennari, Sveinung Kiplesund, Manuel Contreras and Charlotte Watts.
As mentioned earlier, Violence against women and girls is a global human rights violation that affects women everywhere, regardless of their location, culture or socioeconomic status. As a result, VAWG is a persistent, substantial barrier to the health and development of victims, their families and communities .
Globally, a total of 30% of ever partnered women have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence at some point in their lifetime.
In low & middle income countries, programs to prevent violence against women and girls have, until recently focused mainly on access to justice, and the number of middle and low-income countries with domestic violence laws has increased significantly from four to 76 between 1993 and 2013. Many countries have also created specialized police stations for women and girls.
Another important trend in L and M income countries has been the creation of one-stop centres that provide psychological, legal and medical services to survivors of violence. These are sometimes based in hospitals, such as the Thuthuzela care centres in South Africa, whereas in other countries they are stand alone centers run either by women’s ngos or local governments. There is enormous variation in the scope, accessibility and quality of services provided in these centres, and little evidence for their effectiveness in reducing violence against women and girls or to mitigate the negative consequences for survivors.
More recently, however, new approaches to violence prevention are emerging, with very promising results. Particularly, community mobilization approaches, empowerment training, either for women and girls, or women and men together, & economic empowerment programs that include additional training on gender equality have shown large reductions in IPV, child marriage and FGM over relatively short programmatic timeframes.
In high-income countries, most of the research is focused on responses to violence, particularly intimate partner violence.
The most promising programs are ones that focus on victim advocacy (case management, connections to legal services) or those based in health care settings that involve home visitation and psychological support over a longer period of time.
While considerable resources have been spent on evaluating screening programs in health care settings and programs for perpetrators of violence, very few studies have actually shown significant reductions in levels of revictimization or recidivism.
The evidence on school based interventions to prevent dating violence and acquaintance rape was also inconclusive. Although we found 4 effective interventions, the vast majority of school based programmes did not show reductions in perpetration or victimization.
And the available evidence on programs that focus solely on provider training or awareness campaigns indicates that these interventions are ineffective in reducing violence in the absence of broader system wide reforms.
References:
World Health Organization. 2013. Global and regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
Arango D, Morton M, Gennari F, Kiplesund S, Ellsberg M. 2014. Interventions to prevent or reduce violence against women and girls: a systematic review of reviews. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Ellsberg M, Arango D, Morton M, Gennari F, Kiplesund S, Contreras M, Watts C. Prevention of violence against women and girls: what does the evidence say? Lancet 2014; published online Nov 21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61703-7.
Garcia-Moreno C, Zimmerman C, Morris-Gehring A, Heise L, Amin A, Abrahams N, Montoya O, Bhate-Deosthali P, Kilonzo N, Watts C. Addressing violence against women” a call to action. Lancet 2014; published online Nov 21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61830-4.
