Research evidence is key to effective responses to and prevention of violence against women
After ICRW’s Stella Mukasa witnessed how violence affected one woman’s life, she used the evidence to compel decision-makers to address the issue of violence against women. That was 20 years ago. Today, Mukasa says there’s still a need for more evidence to move the anti-violence field forward.
When my colleague asked me if I had any questions for the woman before me in a hospital bed, her skin taut and raw from the burns, I could barely speak. The sight of her and the injuries she had sustained at the hands of her husband silenced me.
ICRW experts Stella Mukasa and Ann Warner on Dec. 5 and 6, respectively, will participate in panel discussions about violence against women. The events commemorate the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign taking place worldwide.
International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) experts Stella Mukasa and Ann Warner on Dec. 5 and 6, respectively, will participate in panel discussions about violence against women. The events commemorate the worldwide annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign, which this year focuses on the intersections of gender violence and militarism.
The discussions will be held at George Washington University (GWU) in conjunction with its Global Women's Institute. The Dec. 5 event will focus on how best to improve the collection, analysis and use of data worldwide to enhance violence prevention and response efforts. Participants include ICRW's Mukasa, director of research on gender-based violence, Kay Freeman, USAID director of gender equality and women's empowerment, Mary Ellsberg, director of the Global Women's Insititute at GWU, and Karen McDonnell, an associate professorin the GWU school of public health and health services.
The discussion will be moderated by Lois Romano, senior political writer for Politico and an ICRW board member.
Titled "From Evidence to Action: Unleashing the Power of Research to Combat Gender Violence," the Dec. 5 event will take place from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., in the City View Room 1957 E Street NW, 7th floor, in Washington, D.C.
The following day, Ann Warner, ICRW senior gender and youth specialist, will participate in a discussion about child marriage and dating violence - two issues that affect millions of girls and young women around the world. Moderated by Susan Wood, director of the Women's Health Institute in GWU, the panel also will include Neil Irvin, executive director of Men Can Stop Rape, Tara Pereira, director of Campus Inclusion Initiatives at GWU and Lucy Lohrmann, teen advisor at Girl Up.
Titled "Violence against Girls: From Child Marriage to Date Rape," the Dec. 6 event will take place from noon to 2 p.m. at the GWU Marvin Center, 800 21st St. NW, room 405, in Washington, D.C.
*Please RSVP to either or both events by emailing gwomen@gwu.edu
Tanzanian women face a labyrinth of barriers when seeking help after experiencing violence
An ICRW researcher sets out to understand why more than half of all Tanzanian women who experience domestic violence don’t seek help. Ultimately, she discovers that women face a web of social and structural obstacles when they seek help after experiencing violence.
Jua* is a 25-year-old Tanzanian woman with a violent husband. He beats her when he’s angry. He blames her for making him angry and “forcing” him to beat her. Tragically, Jua’s situation is not uncommon.
Views about gender roles improve among young Indian athletes in ICRW program
Wed, 07/18/2012
By Gillian Gaynair
Parivartan, a three-year ICRW program in Mumbai, India, used a sports setting to challenge boys’ notions about manhood and women’s roles in society. A final evaluation shows that many of the athletes’ attitudes, perceptions and behaviors about gender equity changed for the better.
New International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) findings show that Indian boys’ views about manhood and women’s roles in society became less patriarchal and more equitable after participating in an ICRW program that aimed to shift norms about gender equity.
The program, called Parivartan, drew in boys from Mumbai through the popular sport of cricket and challenged them to question traditional notions of manhood present in many societies, including their own. Results from ICRW’s evaluation provided proof that sensitizing boys to gender issues can potentially change stereotypes they hold and their attitudes about violence against women.
Unfolding over three years among boys ages 10 to 16, Parivartan capitalized on cricket coaches’ role in the young athletes’ lives to impart the program’s key messages. It required the coaches, too, to shift their own ideas about expectations of men and women in society.
“Parivartan demonstrated that role models for youth – in this case, sports coaches – hold great potential as conduits for helping to address and change seemingly indomitable societal norms,” said Madhumita Das, an ICRW senior technical specialist who directed Parivartan. “What we don’t know yet is if the changes that took place among program participants will remain with them into adulthood.”
Parivartan’s athletes hailed from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum: middle- and upper-class youth from Mumbai schools who had paid coaches and practiced their game in their cricketer’s white on a manicured field near a country club in downtown Mumbai; and boys from Mumbai’s slum community of Shivaji Nagar, who were coached by mentors close in age and practiced on dirt or asphalt, where they used recycled equipment and sometimes ran in sandals or barefoot.
Modeled after the Coaching Boys into Men program by Futures Without Violence (formerly Family Violence Prevention Fund), ICRW sought to test whether the influence of coaches and the sports setting could serve as a venue – like home and school – to learn about gender roles and relationships. Experts aimed to document how attitudes, perceptions and behaviors did or did not change among athletes – as well as their coaches.
“Coaches are more than just instructors of sports techniques. They’re also role models,” Das said. “So we wanted to value this unique relationship of coaches’ with their athletes, to have them channel positive messages to young men about manhood and respect for women.”
The study sample consisted of 168 athletes in 26 Mumbai schools who were exposed to the Parivartan curriculum, and 141 athletes from 19 schools where the program was introduced later. This design provided a means of comparison, to gauge the effectiveness of the program. Similarly, 168 athletes from Shivaji Nagar took part in the program, while 133 athletes from another community served as the comparison group.
Researchers sought to answer three questions: (1) What changes occurred in gender and violence-related attitudes, perceptions and behaviors among the Parivartan athletes? (2) What effects did participation in the training and the overall program have on the coaches? and (3) What changes did the wives, mothers or daughters of the coaches perceive as a result of the men’s participation in the program?
In general, ICRW found that attitudes about gender equity and violence against women shifted for the better among the young cricketers. The coaches’ mindset and behavior also evolved positively.
ICRW determined the changes by asking the athletes to respond to a series of statements centered on stereotypes around manhood and roles for girls and women. This included questions such as, “A wife should always obey her husband” and “Only men should work outside the home.” The participants were asked at the beginning and end of the Parivartan program to indicate on a 5-point scale whether or not they agreed. ICRW compared responses among athletes from the school setting, the slum community and the groups who did not receive the Parivartan curriculum.
Among ICRW’s findings was that most young cricketers supported a more traditional view of manhood when the program started – a view where boys are not expected to be faithful to girlfriends, where they must always act tough and where they believe they’ll lose respect if they talk about their problems. “This suggested that despite their young age, many boys had already been exposed to and internalized the idea that real men are tough, unfaithful and unemotional,” Das said.
Those perceptions had changed for most by the end of the program. However, many participants said they still believed that only men can work outside of the home – one of the more deeply-engrained cultural expectations.
When ICRW looked at changes across the three areas researchers studied – boys’ controlling behavior, manhood and masculinity and girls’ and women’s roles – it found that Parivartan participants’ attitudes about gender roles had changed significantly, compared to those who did not participate in the program.
An important transformation took place in the Shivaji Nagar athletes’ opinions physical abuse of girls: they became less supportive of it. Such violence is not uncommon; many girls in India, particularly those from poor neighborhoods, are not valued much by their families or others in their community. Many don’t have the chance to attend school or have much say over the course of their lives. To that end, some men and boys see girls as disposable and to be controlled – sometimes, by using violence. In the Parivartan study, most young athletes agreed that a girl does not deserve to be hit if she doesn’t finish her homework, obey her elders or argues with her siblings. However, there was still somewhat strong agreement – specifically among the community athletes – that a girl deserves to be slapped or beaten when she doesn’t help with household chores.
“Particularly in poor communities, girls are often seen as a big support to handle household chores and look after their younger siblings,” Das said. “More importance is placed on that role in the home, regardless of how young they are, than in getting an education.”
It’s unclear whether the positive changes in attitudes and behavior that ICRW found will stick as the young men grow into adults. To guarantee such an outcome, ICRW recommends that Parivartan be institutionalized into the settings to which teenagers connect and learn, so that its messages are consistently reinforced.
While the formal program in Mumbai is no longer, Parivartan is expanding its focus and working with a new group of youth in a rural area: Now, it will be Parivartan-Plus, and part of the U.K. Department for International Development’s STRIVE effort to address social inequities that continue to fuel the AIDS epidemic. The program will take place in rural Karnataka, in southern India, and along with addressing violence against women, it also will tackle sexuality and the links between alcohol and substance use and HIV.
Gillian Gaynair is ICRW’s senior writer and editor.
Special Assistant to the President/Policy Advocate
Bio:
Lyric Thompson is a policy advocate and special assistant to the president at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). In this capacity she provides technical and substantive guidance to the President on various topics relating to gender and development; conducts advocacy on a range of issues, including as co-chair of the Girls Not Brides USA coalition; and has conducted fieldwork on gender-responsive urban development in slum communities of Mumbai, India.
Thompson brings expertise in policy advocacy and communications on such issues as women, peace and security; violence against women; and women’s economic empowerment, and has advocated for gender-equitable policies at the United Nations, White House, State Department and on Capitol Hill. She is a women’s issues expert and blogger for TrustLaw Women, a project of the Thomson-Reuters Foundation and a primary expert and strategist for Amnesty International USA’s women’s human rights program. In 2012 she served as a leadership and empowerment expert on the selection committee for the Women Deliver Top 50 Innovations and Ideas that Deliver for Women. In 2011, Diplomatic Courier Magazine named her among the Top 99 Under 33 Young Professionals Impacting Foreign Policy.
Prior to joining ICRW, Thompson served as Senior Policy Analyst and External Relations Officer at Women for Women International, where she advised officials at the White House, State Department and Department of Defense officials in the crafting of the United States’ first-ever National Action Plan on Women, Piece and Security. Prior to this, she worked on USAID-funded conflict mitigation and democratic governance projects in Sudan and Serbia for Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), where she conducted fieldwork on post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Sudan.
Expertise:
Adolescents, Economic Empowerment, Violence against Women, Advocacy and Policy Engagement
Languages Spoken:
English (native); Spanish (proficient)
Education:
Thompson is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she graduated with highest honors for her thesis on development and human rights work in Ghana, West Africa.
This exploration of the political and religious barriers to criminalizing marital rape cites ICRW's International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) to show the prevalence of marital rape in India.
Help-Seeking Pathways and Barriers for Survivors of Gender-based Violence in Tanzania
Results from a Study in Dar es Salaam, Mbeya, and Iringa Regions
Jennifer McCleary-Sills, Sophie Namy, Joyce Nyoni, Datius Rweyemamu, Adrophina Salvatory, Ester Steven 2013
Over the last few decades, gender-based violence has gained international recognition as a grave social and human rights concern. In Tanzania, gender-based violence is widespread; the most recent Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey found that 44% of ever-married women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime. ICRW and the University of Dar es Salaam's Department of Sociology and Anthropology, in partnership with EngenderHealth, conducted a qualitative study in three target regions of the country: Dar es Salaam, Iringa, and Mbeya. This report documents community perceptions and attitudes about gender-based violence, identifies the range of informal and formal services currently available to survivors, highlights gaps in service provision, and provides recommendations for improving existing services. The findings are based on 104 key informant interviews conducted with a wide array of stakeholders, service providers, and duty bearers at the national, district, and ward levels, as well as participatory focus group discussions with 96 male and female community members. The research and recommendations currently are informing the overall design of a multi-sectoral intervention to scale up the response to gender-based violence in Tanzania under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS (PEPFAR).
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Watch Rude Awakening, ICRW's first Passports to Progress event linked to the Turning Point campaign. Held at the National Press Club on March 7 to mark International Women’s Day, the panel discussion explored the complex epidemic of violence against young women and girls in India and beyond – and ways to begin reversing the dangerous trend. Participants included MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell; Christy Turlington Burns, Founder of Every Mother Counts; and Michael Elliott, CEO of the ONE Campaign.
The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) works to make women in developing countries an integral part of alleviating global poverty. Our research evidence identifies women’s contributions as well as the obstacles that prevent them from being economically strong and able to fully participate in society. ICRW translates these insights into a path of action that honors women’s human rights, ensures gender equality and creates the conditions in which all women can thrive.
When ICRW looked at changes across the three areas researchers studied – boys’ controlling behavior, manhood and masculinity and girls’ and women’s roles – it 
