The ABCs of SBC

SBC in Preventing Violence Against Girls, Boys and Women

• Season 1 • Episode 3

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Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) strategies have a proven track record in influencing positive choices, from healthy eating to civic engagement. But what about a deeply entrenched and nuanced social issue like violence against girls, boys and women.

In this episode, we delve into the complexities of this issue and explore existing SBC interventions working to dismantle these harmful norms. Join Qali on a journey from Honduras to South Africa, as she dives deep into the trenches with experts who are on the ground, working to address the root causes of domestic violence.

Please be advised: There will be mentions of violence throughout this episode.

Guests (in order of appearance)

Resources (in order of mention)

The views and opinions expressed by the contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of UNICEF or any entities they represent. The content here is for information purposes only.

The ABCs of SBC is hosted by Qali Id and produced and developed by Helena Ballester Bon in partnership with Common Thread.

Check out UNICEF’s latest publication on Social and Behaviour Change, Why don’t you just behave! For more information about UNICEF SBC, check out the programme guidance.

We care about what you think — you can share your thoughts on the podcast using this feedback form. For all other inquiries, please contact sbc@unicef.org.

(Compilation of news reports reporting on cases of violence against girls, boys, and women across the world). 

Qali Id: Imagine a teenage girl, let's call her Maya. She lives in a small village nestled in the mountains, her dreams as vast as the open sky above her. But in her community, the idea of wife beating is not just accepted – it's justified.

In 2023, according to UNICEF's global database, 34% of adolescent girls like Maya, and 35% of adolescent boys worldwide justified such violence. And in homes where intimate partner violence takes root, child abuse and neglect often follows. 

In many parts of the world, young women like her face another dark reality: the haunting echoes of childhood trauma. 

In a majority of countries, more than 2 in 3 children aged 1 to 14 years are subjected to violent discipline by caregivers. In over a third of countries worldwide, at least 5% of young women aged 18 to 29 reported experiences of sexual violence in their childhood. The burden of such experiences falls disproportionately on girls, while levels among boys remain much lower. 

And let's not forget the teenagers you know. Perhaps your own children, nieces or sisters. One in five adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 have experienced physical and or sexual partner violence in the past year alone.

Now, take a moment to let that sink in. So as we journey through this episode, let's remember that behind each statistic lies a human story. A story that deserves to be heard.

Welcome to The ABCs of SBC, UNICEF's podcast where we explore the ins and outs of social and behaviour change and break down whether it has a role in the challenges of tomorrow. I say tomorrow, even though these issues are very much here and now. 

In the last episode, we explored the role of SBC in conflicts and emergencies. If you haven't given that episode a listen, I highly encourage you do so. 

In this episode, we'll be focusing on whether SBC can contribute to creating a world that's safer for girls, boys, and women. This isn't a new issue, but rather one that has unfortunately proven its ability to endure. One of the most troubling aspects of our society is how power imbalances continue to perpetuate violence against women and children.

Not only does this place them in grave danger, but it also means they often struggle to find the support they desperately need to escape and heal from such abuse. Without policies and services that adequately address these issues, violence against women and children gets normalised and passed down from generation to generation.

So how do we put an end to this vicious cycle? Can SBC help us get there? 

I'm your host, Qali Id, and as a woman who has worked in child protection and gender advocacy and policy, this issue is very close to me. 

Please be advised. There will be mentions of violence throughout this episode. 

Here's Mónica Wills-Silva, a behavioural scientist at Behavioural Insights Team, on her work supporting women navigating abuse and violence.

Mónica Wills-Silva: We were working with the Inter-American Development Bank to see if there was anything we could do to get women survivors of violence closer to some of the helplines. In order to do this, we first did a qualitative phase so that we could gather as many insights as possible on how the services were being communicated, what sort of touch points we had with the women, the barriers they were facing, how they were feeling about the services as well.

Qali Id: What were some of the insights you found from your research? 

Mónica Wills-Silva: Women were displaying what in behavioural sciences we call “uncertainty aversion,” which basically means that we are more comfortable with known risks than with unknown risks, and we feel quite uncomfortable when there's some uncertainty laying behind the next steps.

Qali Id: Okay, I think I'm following. So an example of uncertainty aversion might be if I know I need to go to the doctors and get tested for something, but I'll hold it off for as long as possible because of the unknown risk of the results. But how was uncertainty aversion showing up in this particular study?

Mónica Wills-Silva: So in the case specifically of women, they were worried about more long-term things like what would happen to their children, or whether or not they would have a place to live. But also, they were worried about very specific things about the call, like who would pick up the phone, how long would it take, what will they ask me, how will this information be treated, will they try and come and find me? So they were quite worried about the sort of interaction they were going to have with them, with service providers. 

And so one of the interventions that we created was addressing that bias specifically. So it was telling women what they could expect from the interaction with the services. And we also told them how their information would be handled, that it was all confidential, that if they wanted, it could be anonymous as well.

Qali Id: Okay, so addressing the uncertainty by preparing people for the interaction can put them at ease. Could you help me understand how this information was shared and where they were supposed to find it or access it? 

Mónica Wills-Silva: Initially, we were going to test this intervention on the ground, and this was before the pandemic.

But as soon as the pandemic hit, we had to move very quickly to make sure that we were able to reach women where they were, because we were worried that they were gonna be trapped in lockdowns with their perpetrators, with no information on what the help lines were. 

So we decided to test this online, on Facebook. We created a number of ads and we tested different ads to see how many women we could get through to a page that had all of the information on the helplines and then to actually access those helplines. 

We found that the intervention that addressed uncertainty aversion increased the probability of women actually getting to that information by 20%.

And so now this information has informed a national campaign that the Honduras government has created for TV and radio will be on the Facebook app and the reach of those as well. 

Qali Id: What else did you discover throughout this project? 

Mónica Wills-Silva: One of the things that we found, especially at the start, because it all was kicked off by an evidence review, was that discursive view of evidence meant that not a lot of research was being done in this space, right?

So we've endeavoured to, whilst thinking about carefully how we can apply behavioural sciences to a topic that requires so much safeguarding and like, being quite cautious, also producing that level of evidence so that we can carry on building in this space. 

Qali Id: So by doing this work, you were able to contribute to the larger pool of information on women and GBV in Honduras, which I can only imagine would lead to even more impactful solutions down the line.

However, just because something works in one place doesn't necessarily mean it'll work everywhere. But I am curious to know if you've encountered uncertainty aversion in your other projects related to women. 

Mónica Wills-Silva: So we've done quite a few trials on encouraging help seeking behaviours. For instance, in Chile, we run an intervention looking at whether we could reduce dropout rates of women going through the judicial system.

And we found that creating interventions that remove some of the friction and remove uncertainty aversion, by which I mean, the fact that women were likely to drop off the, the processes because not only did they not know the outcome of the process itself, but they didn't know what the immediate next step was going to be.

They didn't know who was going to be at court. How am I gonna enter? What's gonna happen in this place? 

Qali Id: How did your team approach this challenge? 

Mónica Wills-Silva: We created an intervention whereby we would send them text messages throughout their journey, and we would also send them updates when they weren't any updates so that they knew that there was still someone there supporting them throughout that process to, to address some of that uncertainty aversion that we saw in, in our initial field work.

And we saw a reduction of about 30% in dropout rates and women completing the process. And also we saw a, a reduction in the cases that were dismissed by judges because of lack of evidence. So we're seeing some really strong real world outcomes that can make a difference here. 

Qali Id: Now, I don't know much about the culture in Chile, but women speaking out about abuse and getting justice can be very scary and can come with a lot of stigma. So the fact that this intervention could support women through all of that is really powerful. 

So far we have online ads, text messages. As we look into the future, what do you see a tool like artificial intelligence playing in protecting women and girls? 

Mónica Wills-Silva: So we've been doing quite a few trials focusing on the use of chatbots, for instance, and, in South Africa, to help adolescent girls identify unhealthy behaviours in a relationship very early on.

So one of the things that we have found was that basically, because of availability bias partly, and the fact that we – a lot of the campaigns and a lot of the media tends to portray violence as very physical and not so much emotional, economic, or social violence, we have endeavoured to encourage women to identify other types of violence in their relationships and try to identify unhealthy behaviours.

Qali Id: If I'm understanding correctly, availability bias is our minds immediately associating abuse with being physical because that's what kind of information and evidence is available. But as you describe, abuse has many faces. How did the chatbot help to dismantle that thinking or expand the definition of abuse for young girls?

Mónica Wills-Silva: We found that a chatbot that was gamified, whereby the girls could interact with it and choose their own story, it reflected a messenger similar to theirs, so it was also an adolescent girl. It increased identification of those unhealthy behaviours and it like decreased self-reported measurements of intimate partner violence.

Qali Id: Do interventions always need to target women, the receivers of harm and confusion, rather than the causes of it, whether that be perpetrators, the judicial system, or even the portrayal of abuse in the media? 

Mónica Wills-Silva: One of the things that we want to do more of going forwards is not only focus on the women, because as we've talked about, these, we're not going to solve these problems if we just focus on a target group or on a specific behaviour in isolation. These behaviours happen in a wider social system. And that's why we're trying to push more for us to also focus on bystander interventions, getting people or third parties to intervene and obviously also focusing on the men themselves. Anything that we can do on the deterrent side of things, on their recidivism side of things. So we're trying to like push our interventions in that space too. 

Qali Id: Do you have any advice for folks trying to tackle a gender based issue in their own context? 

Mónica Wills-Silva: In terms of recommendations, we approach this as we would any policy challenge and especially complex challenges, which is: start by breaking it down, basically.

If you talk about gender based violence, it feels quite overwhelming. It feels like quite a complex, like, problem. And what we've done is try and map out, on the one hand, who are the actors that you might want to target? What are the behaviours that you might want to target within that? What can you measure with what's there already? What sort of data you need to start collecting from scratch?

I think if I was to tell anyone who wanted to work in space where to start, that would be it. Just break it down first, map it out, try and understand the opportunities for intervention and, and what you can and can't measure. 

Qali Id: I completely agree that a challenge as big as this one needs us to break it down in the beginning and dissect the whole web of the issue. This approach would certainly help you uncover ways to leverage key players who aren't women and create interventions that mitigate harm. 

I got really curious about what these interventions might look like. So I spoke to the CEO of Heartlines, Garth Japhet, an NGO based in South Africa that hopes to instil values and reduce gender based violence through a project called Fathers Matter.

Garth Japhet: So, my name is Garth Japhet, and I'm CEO of Heartlines. Background by training a medical doctor with particular interest in maternal and child health, and around 30 years ago, started an NGO called Soul City, which uses television, radio, print, edutainment, and have been involved pretty much uh, through Soul City and then through Heartlines in the use of story and edutainment as a social change mechanism.

Qali Id: Going from medicine to storytelling sounds like quite a journey. Why is storytelling so important? 

Garth Japhet: Part of it is just the neuroscience. The neuroscience of it is actually fascinating. Is the – when I give you a range of facts, or whatever, I engage a small part of your brain. When I tell you a story, I engage the parts of your brain that resonate with that story.

So, if there's something around action, then the motor part of your brain lights up. If there's something around sensory, stuff that the auditory or the visual part of your brain engages. And ultimately we remember and we are impacted by story because of that. And, you know, you can ask somebody to sing a song or tell you a story and they will remember that for, for years, but a group of facts often come and go.

So to my mind, the only way to influence human behaviour is through story. And as I say, I think there's this very good neurochemistry and neurology to back that up as to why that is. 

Qali Id: That's really fascinating. I'd love to know more about how you're using storytelling in your project, Fathers Matter. But first, tell me more about the story behind this project and your decision to focus on men.

Garth Japhet: A lot of the gender based violence interventions are, you know, the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, not the fence at the top. And so, you know, if you are looking at the patterns of behaviour that lead to gender based violence, they're multi-generational. They have got multiple causation factors.

And so, yes, all the issues around the legal factors, the culture, etc, etc. But I think it's also important to understand that you've got to impact on this issue way before boys and girls become young women and, and men. The research around the influence of the positive presence of a man in a child's life, not necessarily the biological father, but the ongoing positive and active presence of caring and positive men, the evidence is very clear that it is preventative about men becoming perpetrators of violence, and girls becoming victims of violence. 

Having the positive and active presence of a man in a, in a girl's life gives her a better sense of what a good relationship should look like. And so becomes less prone to getting involved in relationships where violence is, is normalised. What again is interesting is the number of, of women who are in abusive relationships, who report that their, their family life had that as well, where their mother was, or they were abused by a father or men in their lives.

In the U. S., over 90% of men in jail for violent crimes come from father absent families. And it's reflected in our own statistics here in South Africa. So, you know, this is one of the key reasons why we are intervening specifically with men, but also with women, because the issue of what father is, is deeply held by both men and women.

And in our context, the reason why a lot of men are not present in the lives of their children isn't just out of personal choice. 

Qali Id: Can you unpack that a bit more? What do you mean by personal choice? 

Garth Japhet: In South Africa, and actually I think probably globally, the father's role is seen to be provider: provider of money, provider of income.

And if you can't provide, then you can't be present. And that is deeply felt by men, but also very deeply held by a lot of women as well. So, you know, I think targeting only one gender to deal with something that is as complex as gender based violence, you know, for me, doesn't make a huge amount of sense.

Qali Id: Tell me about your project, Fathers Matter. 

Garth Japhet: There's basically two parts to it. So it's, the research is the base, uh, from which we then design the sort of intervention. There are two layers of the intervention. The one is, is the communication side, which is very narrative based. So, there we produce six half-hour films that you can find on the Fathers Matter website, umm, shown on the national broadcaster, etc.

But each film of 26 minutes highlighting a different sort of aspect of this issue. And, you know, we come back to that issue of story, is that that then sparks debate, discussion, and so on. Lots of very short-format video. Uh, also available on YouTube, et cetera, but all of these have been produced for use by community and in community as a way to build discussions and to start that process of knowledge change, culture change, and so on.

We then have interventions on the ground where we are beginning to work with institutions. So obviously in our context in Southern Africa, the church is the biggest community based structure, and so we work extensively with churches, and they will watch the films. We've got a curriculum for men, where men come together to support each other in the fatherhood journey.

We're developing it for men and women now as well. We've got Fathers Matter Sports Clubs, where the players will go through a sort of six-week process, again, using the films as a basis. And a lot of it is around the aha moment. A lot of people say to you, "you know, I just never knew." So, you know, we're innovating in terms of beyond those aha moments.

Qali Id: Going beyond that aha moment. Can you tell me about what that looks like? 

Garth Japhet: We've developed a WhatsApp platform which, based on the age of your children, sends you messages each week. It's also got ChatGPT in its back end, so you can actually ask questions, you know, "I've got this disciplinary issue," or "my daughter is, you know, out all the time, have you got some suggestions?"

So you've got this sort of multifaceted, you've got the community based, inter-businesses, inter-churches, inter-sports clubs, uh, inter-universities. And then you've got the communication component, which is digital media, traditional media, radio, and so on. 

Qali Id: Have you noticed a shift in the culture from your work through Fathers Matter?

Garth Japhet: And there's multiple forces that, that impact on culture. And it's always difficult to say, you know, "this intervention shifted culture," but it's, it's very much like, you know, the, the grains of sand in a bottle – you don't know which, which grain tips it over the edge. But I think certainly, I mean, we're seeing a, a cultural shift, you know, we'd like to think that we're part of that, but certainly you'll see more and more men involved in the lives of children. 

You know, as somebody involved in behaviour change, you'll know that, that knowledge is a starting point. And, you know, I've often said that for me, if we have any success in this, is that we can shift the dial purely on knowledge, that people begin to understand that men do matter in the lives of children. Again, it's not necessarily biological fathers, it's uncles, cousins, you know, sports coaches, positive male influences. And it matters more than just on violence. Again, lots of the research in terms of educational outcomes, umm socioeconomic outcomes, uh drugs and alcohol, teenage pregnancy and young girls.

All of these things have been, you know, not just indirectly, but quite directly linked to the absence or presence of caring, positive male role models in children's lives. And again, we are so clear about saying this is not in any way undermining the extraordinary women out there that do the most amazing work, but this is good for single mothers as well to have men more involved in the lives of their children.

Qali Id: What advice would you share with other practitioners? 

Garth Japhet: I think probably the, the key piece of advice is to seek first to understand. Understanding particularly the obstacles to change. You know, I think that's the, I think there's sort of two or one theory in particular, which I've always, very useful to understand this, this field is the socio-ecological model, which is understanding that, that individuals are not islands.

Um, you don't just sort of impact on that person and then they change. Individuals are part of families, which are part of communities, which are part of countries, which are part of socio-political systems, and all of those impact on people's behaviour. You know, what is normative within my community is what I will tend towards.

Who are the voices that are loudest in that community? Who's shaping the norms and practices? And so this, this concept of understand to what are the barriers to change at these different levels, you know, at the individual level, it might just be knowledge. In our case, this thing around Fathers Matter is, is a knowledge is a big one.

Then, you know, if we begin using the father analogy, you know, looking at, at family and the impact of culture on what prevents or enables men to be present in the lives of children. You then, you know, move one step further into the socio-political environment and you, you look at things like, in South Africa, which is so called "progressive," you've got three months of maternity leave, you've got two weeks of paternity leave. You've got things like in the healthcare system is that men are actively discouraged from being part of the antenatal and birthing process. 

So I think the key piece of advice would be around this, take time to understand the problem. And there are three parts to that. The one is speaking to the so-called experts. They have a role to play and the second is, is understanding the literature that might or might not be present.

So in our case, there was very little literature in Africa around men's, the reasons why men are not present. Most of it's coming out of North America, Europe. And then it's to speak to people on the ground and to understand from them how they see this issue, what's enabling them or preventing them from being present.

And that process is the key to behaviour change interventions. 

Qali Id: Thank you so much, Garth. The impact of social norms on relationships and families cannot be overstated. As Garth mentioned, norms can prevent fathers from being present even before their children are born. By upholding patriarchal principles, these social norms create an environment conducive to violence against women, thereby affecting the safety of boys and girls alike.

Norms can prevent survivors of abuse from reporting and being able to access support. As Garth explained, addressing violence means addressing both social norms and individual behaviours. They are making an impact on men, women, and children in their community.

This clearly shows the interconnectedness of these challenges, and I think serves as a compelling example for effective solutions that we can all learn from. There's still so much work to be done to bring violence against women and children to an end. 

So I'd like to close with a little message from Laura de Molière, the former head of the Behavioural Insights team for the UK Cabinet Office.

Laura de Molière: When it comes to some of these topics, you know, like violence against women, it can, from a practitioner point of view, sometimes feel like, you know, we won't put violence to zero tomorrow, so we can only make small steps. But I, I like to think of it as running two tracks. The first one does anything we can do right now to improve the user journey, to improve access to certain services, right? And then the other track, which is this kind of longer term, behaviour change piece where we are, you know, slowly changing attitudes, changing values, changing norms and so on. And it can be quite satisfying to see the relatively more quick impact in the first-hand, but keep an eye on the longer prize as well.

Qali Id: That's our show. A huge thank you to all of our guests, Mónica, Garth and Laura. You can learn more about them and the projects they mentioned in this episode in our show notes. If you're eager to learn more about SBC, UNICEF has this great online resource which has over 43 tools to help experts and non-experts understand, practise, advocate for, and explain SBC.

Check it out at sbcguidance.org, also linked in our show notes. And if you have a question about SBC that you'd like us to answer, you can shoot us an email at sbc@unicef.org and we might be able to answer it in a future episode. If this is your first time listening, welcome. If you've been listening, thank you.

Stay tuned for our next episode to see whether SBC has a role to play in the present and very pressing climate crisis.