The Indashyikirwa programme in Rwanda was funded by the UK department for International Development, with the aim of preventing and reducing intimate partner violence. The programme was implemented over four years (2014-2018) by CARE Rwanda International, Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre, and Rwanda Women’s Network, in Eastern, Western and Northern provinces of rural Rwanda. One of the components of the programme included the training and engagement of opinion leaders to help create an enabling environment for social change.

This practice brief highlights lessons learned from – and assesses the value of – engaging opinion leaders as part of a comprehensive intimate partner violence prevention programme. In order for effective engagement to take place, there is a need to carefully map which key opinion leaders can and should be targeted, and maintain regular dialogue and communication. It is also important to engage them not just as opinion leaders, but also as people in relationships themselves.

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The Indashyikirwa programme in Rwanda was funded by the UK department for International Development, with the aim of preventing and reducing intimate partner violence. It was implemented over four years (2014-2018) by CARE Rwanda International, Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre, and Rwanda Women’s Network, in rural Rwanda. One of the components of the programme included training couples as community activists (CAs), with the view to diffusing the benefits of the programme to a larger audience.

This practice belief highlights the impact of training of 840 couples as CAs, which include them feeling better equipped to respond to IPV, greater community awareness of IPV and greater community support for women’s empowerment and more gender equitable division of household labour. Recommendations consist of training more couples as CAs, adapting the community activism component to the specific country and context in which it is being applied, and ensuring proper linkage between the community activism component and other parts of the Indashyikirwa programme, e.g. engagement with opinion leaders.

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The Indashyikirwa programme in Rwanda was funded by the UK department for International Development and implemented over four years (2014-2018) by CARE Rwanda International, Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre, and Rwanda Women’s Network, in Eastern, Western and Northern provinces of rural Rwanda. The programme aimed to reduce IPV, shift social norms and attitudes condoning violence, and provide more empowering responses to survivors. One of the components of the programme involved the establishment of women’s safe spaces, where women and men could disclose and discuss IPV, and be referred or accompanied to health, justice and social services.

This evidence brief reveals that the creation of safe spaces helped facilitate the disclosure of IPV, enhanced knowledge and awareness of more gender equitable norms, offered opportunities for collective solidarity and livelihoods skills training, and improved the quality of and linkages to formal services.

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In Ghana, violence against women and girls is widespread. Recent estimates indicate that 28% of women report at least one form of violence in the past year and 45% report experiencing violence at some point in their lifetime. COMBAT (Community Based Action Teams) is a rural response strategy that aims to (i) reduce the incidence of VAWG in rural communities in Ghana, (ii) protect women’s rights via state and community structures; and, (iii) raise public awareness about the causes and consequences of VAWG. This evidence suggests that community-led evidence-based interventions supported by local actors (e.g. traditional and religious leaders) are uniquely placed to support prevention of, and response to, VAWG in this context.

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In Afghanistan, more than 50% of married women report experiencing emotional, physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner. Violence against women is associated with intergenerational effects such that the experience and perpetration of intimate partner violence is linked to individual childhood abuse. Furthermore, evidence suggests that children’s exposure to various forms of violence, such as family violence in the home and corporal punishment at school, are strongly linked to children’s perpetration of violence against their peers, suggesting that children learn and reproduce violent norms and practices from adults. In order to prevent violence against children and lay the foundations for a more peaceful society, Help the Children Afghanistan (HTAC) implemented a school-based peace education and community social norms change intervention reaching 2000 boys and 1500 girls.

This evidence brief presents the findings from an evaluation of the programme. The evaluation demonstrated that conducting peace education with children in schools, coupled with activities aimed at changing community social norms, can lead to a reduction in various forms of violence, including children’s peer violence, corporal punishment of children both at school and at home, and domestic violence against women at the household level.

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Bhattacharjee, P., Campbell, L., Thalinja, R., Nair, S., Doddamane, M., Ramanaik, S., ... & Beattie, T. S. (2018). Understanding the Relationship Between Female Sex Workers and Their Intimate Partners: Lessons and Initial Findings From Participatory Research in North Karnataka, South India. Health education & behavior, 1090198118763934.

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Gibbs, A., Corboz, J., & Jewkes, R. (2018). Factors associated with recent intimate partner violence experience amongst currently married women in Afghanistan and health impacts of IPV: a cross sectional study. BMC Public Health, 18(1), 593.

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Gibbs, A., Dunkle, K., Washington, L., Willan, S., Shai, N., & Jewkes, R. (2018). Childhood traumas as a risk factor for HIV-risk behaviours amongst young women and men living in urban informal settlements in South Africa: A cross-sectional study. PloS one, 13(4), e0195369.

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Chirwa, E. D., Sikweyiya, Y., Addo-Lartey, A. A., Alangea, D. O., Coker-Appiah, D., Adanu, R. M., & Jewkes, R. (2018). Prevalence and risk factors of physical or sexual intimate violence perpetration amongst men in four districts in the central region of Ghana: Baseline findings from a cluster randomised controlled trial. PloS one, 13(3), e0191663. 

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Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a serious human rights violation and a significant global health and security issue. Despite the progress made in addressing VAWG since the landmark Fourth World Conference on Women, VAWG remains a pandemic issue. In 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 35% of women globally experience sexual and/or physical intimate partner violence (IPV) or sexual assaulta at some point in their lives. There is some evidence that indicates that sexual violence against both women and men increase during conflict. The global prevalence of sexual violence among refugees and displaced persons in complex humanitarian emergencies is estimated to be 21.4%, suggesting that approximately one in five women who are refugees or displaced by an emergency experience sexual violence. Recent studies indicate that IPV may actually be more common than conflictrelated sexual assault. However, these figures should be interpreted with caution, as both IPV and conflict-related violence are under-reported in most settings.

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Christofides, N. J., Hatcher, A. M., Pino, A., Rebombo, D., McBride, R. S., Anderson, A., & Peacock, D. (2018). A cluster randomised controlled trial to determine the effect of community mobilisation and advocacy on men’s use of violence in periurban South Africa: study protocol. BMJ Open, 8(3), e017579.

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Gibbs A, Dunkle K, Jewkes R (2018) Emotional and economic intimate partner violence as key drivers of depression and suicidal ideation:A cross-sectional study among young women in informal settlements in South Africa. PLoS ONE 13 (4): e0194885. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194885

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Al Mamun, M., Parvin, K., Yu, M., Wan, J., Willan, S., Gibbs, A., ... & Naved, R. T. (2018). The HERrespect intervention to address violence against female garment workers in Bangladesh: study protocol for a quasi-experimental trial. BMC public health, 18(1), 512.  

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Stern, E., Martins, S., Stefanik, L., Uwimpuhwe, S., & Yaker, R. (2018). Lessons learned from implementing Indashyikirwa in Rwanda-an adaptation of the SASA! approach to prevent and respond to intimate partner violence. Evaluation and program planning, 71, 58-67.

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An evaluation of gender-based violence case management services in the Dadaab refugee camps In the Dadaab refugee camps in north-eastern Kenya, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and CARE International (CARE) have implemented programmes that aim to both respond to and prevent GBV. A cornerstone of this work has been to train refugees, known as refugee community workers, to deliver aspects of GBV prevention and response work in order to develop a broader implementation of traditional GBV outreach, community mobilisation, and case management. Between 2014 and 2017, research co-led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC), in collaboration with IRC and CARE, was conducted to assess this model and better understand its feasibility, acceptability, and influence among female survivors of GBV accessing care. This report presents the findings of that research.

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An evaluation of gender-based violence case management services in the Dadaab refugee camps

In the Dadaab refugee camps in north-eastern Kenya, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and CARE International (CARE) have implemented programmes that aim to both respond to and prevent GBV. A cornerstone of this work has been to train refugees, known as refugee community workers, to deliver aspects of GBV prevention and response work in order to develop a broader implementation of traditional GBV outreach, community mobilisation, and case management.

Between 2014 and 2017, research co-led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC), in collaboration with IRC and CARE, was conducted to assess this model and better understand its feasibility, acceptability, and influence among female survivors of GBV accessing care. This report presents the findings of that research.

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Corboz, J., Hemat, O., Siddiq, W., & Jewkes, R. (2018). Children's peer violence perpetration and victimization: Prevalence and associated factors among school children in Afghanistan. PLoS one, 13(2), e0192768.

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