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Report: Opening the Pathways to Help for Survivors of Violence

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New ICRW report provides recommendations for improving services to women in Tanzania after they experience violence
Tue, 03/19/2013
By Gillian Gaynair

A new report by ICRW identifies gaps in services to Tanzanian women who experience violence and provides recommendations for improving the national response to gender-based violence.

Tanzanian women who experience violence face an array of barriers when they seek help, and as a result, few women solicit or receive appropriate support, according to a new International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) report.

The report, “Help-Seeking Pathways and Barriers for Survivors of Gender-based Violence in Tanzania,” is based on a qualitative study in the Dar es Salaam, Iringa and Mbeya regions of the country. Researchers aimed to document community perceptions and attitudes about violence against women, identify available services for survivors as well as gaps in resources, and provide recommendations for improving existing services.

The study will inform the design of a new initiative by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which strives to advance the availability and quality of services for survivors in Tanzania, improve the national response to violence and enhance research evidence related to gender-base violence, among other goals.

Violence against women is widespread in Tanzania, with 44 percent of women reporting in the most recent Demographic Health Survey that they’ve experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime. Support services, meanwhile, are inadequate.

For the study, ICRW partnered with a team from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Dar es Salaam to conduct interviews with service providers, male and female community members and others. Jennifer McCleary-Sills, a social and behavioral scientist, and Sophie Namy, a gender and development specialist, led the research for ICRW.

Based on the interviews, researchers found that many types of gender-based violence – such as forced sex or physical violence in a relationship – were perceived as socially acceptable. In terms of physical abuse, many women said that they came to expect and even accept such violence because that is the norm in their community.

Women who experience violence seldom report it to anyone, including the police or medical personnel, the study found. If women do seek help, they often face an extremely slow, cumbersome process that neither prioritizes survivors’ needs nor responds to violence as an emergency situation. What’s more, researchers found that adequate support and justice are often blocked by a host of socio-cultural and structural barriers. For instance, many women fear being blamed for reporting a rape or are hesitant to access the justice system if her perpetrator has the means to possibly pay off police or a government official.

Gaps in services for survivors of violence were found across the various regions in the study. However, researchers discovered that obstacles for those seeking help and to access to care were particularly prevalent in rural locations and communities outside of Dar es Salaam, the capital.

The study offers a comprehensive set of recommendations to improve how the government and all sectors respond to gender-based violence in general and survivors’ needs in particular. If implemented effectively, researchers say their recommendations have the potential to further strengthen Tanzania’s efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women.

Related blogs:
The War at Home: Uncharted Territory
The War at Home: Suffering in Silence

Program on Alcohol Use and HIV Shows Promising Results

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Results from program in Namibia may be applicable in other settings
Mon, 02/11/2013
By Gillian Gaynair

A program in Namibia that aimed to reduce people’s risky sexual behavior by curbing their alcohol use showed promising results that may be applicable in other settings in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRW helped design and evaluate the program.

A three-year program in Namibia that aimed to reduce people’s risky sexual behavior by curbing their alcohol use showed promising results that may be applicable in other settings in sub-Saharan Africa, a new report by AIDSTAR-One finds.

The report was part of an AIDSTAR-One initiative, in collaboration with the Gen Pop and Youth Technical Working Group of USAID’s Office of HIV/AIDS. AIDSTAR-One provides rapid technical assistance to USAID and U.S. government country teams and is funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). On behalf of AIDSTAR-One, the International Center for Research (ICRW) led the effort in partnership with the Society for Family Health (SFH) in Namibia.

Namibia is experiencing a severe, generalized HIV epidemic and has very high rates of alcohol consumption. The program was based Kabila, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Namibia’s capital city, Windhoek., The Kabila neighborhood, which encompasses about 2 sq miles, has a significant concentration of informal, home-based bars – 256 in total – that provide one of the few steady sources of income for community members. Drinking helps residents cope with stress associated with poverty, and going to a bar is among the few forms of entertainment for them.

ICRW and SFH worked with bar owners, patrons and community leaders to design, implement and evaluate a program to encourage the community to address hazardous alcohol use and make bars less risky environments for HIV transmission.

Among the findings from the evaluation:

  • Binge drinking decreased from 54 percent to 25 percent
  • Bar patrons who had the most exposure to program activities consumed less alcohol during bar visits
  • Heavy drinkers were more likely to be exposed to the program’s activities and were significantly more likely to discuss condoms with a partner, buy condoms and refuse to have sex without a condom
  • Bar owners found it feasible to change their bar’s environment by having shorter hours and displaying educational materials about alcohol. Sixty-four percent of patrons noticed the former, and 33 percent noted the shift in hours.

 

The effort in Namibia was one of a few taking place globally that seeks to develop community-level solutions to hazardous alcohol use. Most existing evidence around alcohol and HIV prevention programming is from sub-Saharan Africa, and focuses on individual drinking and risky behavior – not whole communities or the dynamics of bars that enable heavy drinking.

“The findings from this project in Namibia provide a significant contribution to the small, but growing body of evidence on how to tackle alcohol consumption as a contributor to HIV risk,” said Katherine Fritz, director of ICRW’s global health research and programs and a leading expert on the link between alcohol use and HIV. “The experience demonstrated that with community support, bar owners are willing to alter their establishment’s environment and intervene when they witness alcohol-induced risky behaviors.”

Fritz said the experience from the Kabila study can be built upon there and in other similar settings. To do so, the report offers several recommendations, including targeting binge drinking, which has been shown to contribute significantly to harmful behaviors; and encouraging bar staff to talk to patrons about safe sex practices, among other recommendations.

ICRW continues to gather evidence and identify innovative solutions to tackle social forces – like heavy alcohol consumption – that increase people’s vulnerability to HIV infection. ICRW is a member of STRIVE, a global research consortium that is investigating the social norms and inequities that drive HIV. Among efforts in this partnership, ICRW is addressing the correlation between alcohol, drug abuse and HIV among youth participating in an expanded version of Parivartan, a sports-based program in India.

Read more about this project:

Namibian Community Unites to Curb Alcohol Use and HIV Risk

ICRW Tackles Links Between Alcohol Use and HIV Risk

Environmental Influences  

   

Celebrating the UN Ban on Female Genital Mutilation

Submitted by Stella Mukasa on Friday, December 28, 2012
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Efforts to end FGM should consider the power of community-based interventions

A new UN resolution to ban female genital mutilation presents an opportunity for governments, organizations and others to create effective approaches to curb the practice. One successful program in Ethiopia provides a strong example of how to do just that.

A new UN resolution to ban female genital mutilation presents an opportunity for governments, organizations and others to create effective approaches to curb the practice. One successful program in Ethiopia provides a strong example of how to do just that. 

The War at Home: Suffering in Silence

Submitted by Sophie Namy on Monday, December 10, 2012
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Rape survivors scared into silence by fear of stigma

Sexual violence affects approximately 20 percent of women in Tanzania, but most don’t speak up because they are likely to face stigma and discrimination and may be blamed for the violence.

Asha* is a young, unmarried Tanzanian woman. She is also a rape survivor. But she had told no one about that violent encounter, a truth she carries with her every day.She's not alone - many women here don't speak up about sexual violence because they fear the stigma and discrimination they are likely to endure.

The War at Home: Enduring Evidence

Submitted by Stella Mukasa on Wednesday, December 5, 2012
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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.

Lyric Thompson

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Lyric
Thompson
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. 

Africa: To Be Forever Free!

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Wed, 03/20/2013
AllAfrica

ICRW's research on child marriage in Africa is cited in this discussion of modern slavery.  

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Help-Seeking Pathways and Barriers for Survivors of Gender-based Violence in Tanzania

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).

(1.91 MB)

We encourage the use and dissemination of our publications for non-commercial, educational purposes. Portions may be reproduced with acknowledgment to the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). For questions, please contact publications@icrw.org; or (202) 797-0007.

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Jeff Edmeades discusses child marriage on BBC Radio

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Jeff Edmeades discusses the situation of child marriage in Ethiopia and Afghanistan. His 5-minute live interview with BBC Radio 5 begins at mark 3:20

Strengthening Research and Action on Gender-based Violence in Africa

Strengthening Research and Action on Gender-based Violence in Africa

Ellen Weiss, Stella Mukasa, Mary Ellsberg, Naeemah Abrahams, Shanaaz Mathews, Lori Michau, Jean Kemitare, and Margo Young
2012

Research provides needed evidence to advocate for strong laws and programs to combat gender-based violence. Yet research capacity is lagging in many parts of the world including Africa. In response, ICRW, the Gender-based Violence Prevention Network and the South African Medical Research Council undertook a capacity building program that paired NGOs with research institutions in the region. Our experience shows that partnering violence prevention organizations with researchers has strengthened the formers’ skills to carry out relevant action research, and directed evidence into the hands of those best positioned to use it, namely activists and program implementers.

(1.51 MB)

We encourage the use and dissemination of our publications for non-commercial, educational purposes. Portions may be reproduced with acknowledgment to the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). For questions, please contact publications@icrw.org; or (202) 797-0007.

Terms and Conditions »

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