Women Empowerment, Social Norms and Domestic Violence

家庭暴力影响着全世界30%的妇女和50%以上生活在冲突或冲突后社区的妇女。防止家庭暴力很重要，不仅因为它侵犯了妇女的权利和自由，而且因为家庭暴力对经济增长产生负面影响，使结构性贫困长期存在。造成这一影响的一个重要机制是家庭暴力与配偶之间的低合作之间的相互作用，导致健康、教育和经济成果达不到最佳水平。在受冲突影响的地区，家庭合作对冲突后恢复至关重要，这种情况更加严重。该项目的目的是更好地了解如何设计有效和高效的干预措施，以减少家庭暴力，特别是在受冲突影响地区的弱势群体中。我们的研究推进了ESRC-DFID扶贫研究联合基金的目标三：“可以采取哪些措施来减少暴力和不稳定对最贫困人口的风险和影响，并提高脆弱和受冲突影响局势中和平建设，国家建设和更广泛发展干预措施的有效性？”“为了设计有效的干预措施来减少家庭暴力，有必要了解导致家庭暴力的具体因素。迄今为止，关于家庭暴力干预措施的研究只提供了初步的、往往相互矛盾的证据。我们的项目旨在大大提高我们对家庭暴力的理解，其原因以及如何干预可以更好地减少它。我们将通过解决两个问题来实现这一目标：问题1：不同因素在多大程度上影响家庭暴力的流行？以往的研究已经确定了影响家庭暴力发生的各种因素，如丈夫的心理特征、妇女对家庭暴力的抵制和接受、妇女的创收机会、关于家庭暴力的社会规范以及妇女赋权的水平。然而，每个因素对家庭暴力的影响程度是未知的。问题二：不同因素之间的相互作用如何推动家庭暴力并影响家庭合作和多层面贫穷，特别是弱势群体的贫穷？荷兰乐施会将通过研究在埃及120个农村社区实施的几项家庭暴力干预措施来回答这些问题。选择埃及是因为它是少数几个同时实施几项家庭暴力干预措施的冲突后国家之一，使我们能够测试所有因素的影响。- 通过改变妇女对自身权利的信念和对暴力行为的接受，赋予妇女权力。改变男子对家庭暴力的态度和社会规范。通过提供小额信贷改变妇女的经济机会。在每个社区，将对人口中的一个小部分进行干预，并与其配偶一起参加基线和终点调查。他们还将参与实验，在实验中，他们决定如何分配资源，以衡量配偶的讨价还价能力和家庭中的合作程度。通过这些实验，我们将能够开发新的工具来衡量家庭暴力和妇女赋权。我们研究的主要影响目标是减少家庭暴力的流行，加强家庭合作和多方面的家庭成果，减少低收入国家和其他发展中国家，特别是冲突或冲突后地区低收入家庭的结构性贫困。我们的研究将使政策制定者和非政府组织能够针对特定的弱势群体设计更有效和更高效的家庭暴力干预措施。它还将提供关于家庭暴力的规模、原因和后果的证据。这包括家庭暴力对加强家庭合作和多层面家庭成果以及减少结构性贫困的影响。这些结果将用于加强游说政府和捐助者支持家庭暴力干预措施。

Domestic violence (DV) affects 30% of women worldwide and more than 50% of women living in conflict or post-conflict communities. The prevention of DV is important, not only because it is a violation of women's rights and freedoms, but also because DV negatively affects economic growth and perpetuates structural poverty. An important mechanism driving this effect is the interaction between DV and low cooperation between spouses, resulting in less than optimal health, education and economic outcomes. This dynamic is exacerbated in conflict-affected zones, where household cooperation is essential for post-conflict recovery. The aim of this project is to better understand how to design effective and efficient interventions aimed at reducing DV, especially among vulnerable groups in conflict-affected areas. Our research advances goal three of the ESRC-DFID Joint fund for poverty alleviation research: 'What measures can be taken to reduce the risks and impact of violence and instability on the poorest and increase the effectiveness of peace-building, state-building and wider development interventions in fragile and conflict-affected situations?'In order to design interventions to reduce DV that actually work, it is necessary to understand the specific factors driving it. To date, research on DV interventions has only provided preliminary and often contradictory evidence. Our project aims to substantially advance our understanding of DV, its causes and how interventions can better reduce it. We will accomplish this by addressing two questions:Question 1: To what extent do different factors affect the prevalence of domestic violence?Previous research has identified various factors that influence the occurrence of DV such as the husbands' psychological traits, women's resistance and acceptance of DV, women's income earning opportunities, social norms about DV and the level of women's empowerment. The extent to which each individual factor influences DV is, however, unknown. Question 2: How do the interactions between the different factors drive DV and influence household cooperation and multidimensional poverty, especially for vulnerable groups?These questions will be answered by studying several DV interventions implemented in 120 rural communities in Egypt by Oxfam Novib. Egypt is chosen because it is one of the few post-conflict countries where several DV interventions are being implemented simultaneously, allowing us to test the effect of all factors. These include interventions with the following objectives: - Empowering women, by changing their beliefs about their rights and the acceptability of violence.- Changing men's attitudes and social norms about DV.- Changing women's economic opportunities through the provision of microcredit. In each community a sub-section of the population will receive an intervention and participate, with their spouse, in a base- and end-line survey. They will also participate in experiments where they make decision about allocating resources to measure bargaining power of the spouses and the level of cooperation in the household. Through these experiments we will be able to develop new tools to measure DV and women's empowerment. The main impact objective of our research is to reduce the prevalence of DV, enhance household cooperation and multidimensional household outcomes, and reduce structural poverty in low-income households in LIC's and other developing countries, especially in conflict or post-conflict areas. Our research will enable policy-makers and NGOs to design more effective and efficient DV interventions targeted at specific vulnerable groups. It will also provide evidence on the scale, causes and consequences of DV. This includes the effect of DV on enhancing household cooperation and multidimensional household outcomes, and reducing structural poverty. These results will be used to enhance the lobby for government and donor support to DV interventions.