This is the third in a series of four evidence review papers produced by What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls, a £25 million global programme funded by the UK Department for International Development which seeks to understand address the underlying causes of violence across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. VAWG responses mechanisms have, for the most part, been developed and deployed with the primary goal of providing improved support services to women and girl survivors, through strengthening the response of the police and criminal justice system, and the health and social sector. An assumption is often made that strengthened response mechanisms will also lead to a decrease in rates of violence. For example, a victim of intimate partner violence may be less likely to return to an abusive relationship following their interaction with and support from the health and social sectors. This paper examines the evidence base on the effectiveness of response mechanisms in preventing the re occurrence of VAWG, a key question in the field of violence prevention and concludes that widely held assumptions have not yet been proven, and indeed further research is needed.

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