Globally, one third of women (736 million) have experienced physical and/or sexual violence, oftentimes when they were still children. Domestic violence and violence against women (VAW) have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Ending gender-based violence is integral to achieving Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on gender equality and is a prerequisite for becoming a fair, just, and democratic society. 

Too many people believe it is ok for a husband to beat a wife, even for something as simple as burning dinner. This is why globally coordinated campaigns like #ItsNotOK and Global 16 Days emphasize our collective responsibility to end VAW. But how are our collective efforts supporting women, especially those in conflict-affected countries, to speak up for their rights?  

What does the data tell us?  

At Women for Women International (WfWI), we collect annual data from the women who participate in our Stronger Women, Stronger Nations program, including data which measures how our outcomes contribute to various SDGs. We ask women about how they perceive their own ‘self-efficacy.’ We measure self-efficacy using an adaptation of the General Self Efficacy Scale where women answer a series of questions to score on an adjusted scale between 1 to 100. This includes tracking changes over time on their self-confidence, agency, and their perceived ability to make decisions about their own future. 

On average across our programs, women report a drastic increase in knowing their rights. Each year, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, we observe a consistent increase in women’s perceived self-efficacy between enrolment and graduation in our programs across post-conflict communities in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Afghanistan, and Iraq. 

We also ask women in the program whether they have publicly spoken out against abuse of women in their community. Even with the dramatic increase in self-efficacy, only 3 to 37 percent of women report speaking publicly against the abuse of women by the time they graduate from our program. 

Our program’s data show a critical gap between women knowing their rights and feeling able to speak up for them. Self-efficacy is typically measured as a precursor for positive behavioral change post-intervention. However, when measuring whether women were speaking up for their rights and against abuse in public, the margins of increase were powerful, but still reflected a relatively low percentage of women from the group speaking up by the end of the program.   

Our data in global contexts 

Our program’s data aligns with what other groups from grassroots, community, and global levels like the United Nations General Assembly have learned. Achieving gender equality and ending VAW requires more than just women speaking up.  

Right now, VAW is powerfully ingrained in the patriarchal laws and cultural norms which influence women’s lives and their experiences of violence, publicly and privately. When VAW is normalized through community attitudes, it means that community members—men and women alike—hold beliefs which justify acts of VAW and hold women responsible for their own abuse by putting all the burden on women to avoid violence. We must all work to address the harmful social norms and patriarchal legal or political systems which normalize violence and stigmatize speaking up against it. 

A powerful roadmap was made through the Generation Equality Forum, which involved governments, civil society, indigenous organizations, grassroots feminist movements, and the private sector. The Generation Equality Forum was unique in its inclusivity and action-oriented outcomes. For instance, one of the Action Coalitions is devoted to addressing Gender Based Violence in scalable ways from prevention, providing care for survivors, and combatting impunity for abusers. 

What does this roadmap look like in Nigeria?  

In Nigeria, WfWI’s program data from 2020 showed major improvements in women’s average self-reported score of self-efficacy (scale from 1 to 100). Women in Nigeria reported an average self-efficacy score of just 27 when they began the program, then a score of 89 when completing the program. However, as with our other programs, the drastic rise in women’s average reported self-efficacy was not matched with behavior changes in women speaking up for their rights and against abuse.  

The percentage point change of women who reported an instance of speaking up went from 1 percent at the start of the program to just 19 percent of women speaking out in their communities at the end of the program. This growth is excellent, particularly given the low starting point. But the participants’ low growth in this area—comparison to other our metrics of positive action such as health and wellbeing or economic power—indicates that, overall, there are simply fewer women speaking up for themselves and their peers. This was a common trend across all of the post-conflict settings we work in. 

National statistics show that 25 percent of Nigerian men, and 35 percent of Nigerian women believe it is justifiable to beat a wife in certain situations. For example, a woman in Nigeria participating in our program told us how she advises other women to start doing what pleases her husband so that he doesn’t always beat her. A man in the community also said a wife “deserves” to be beaten for regularly burning food during cooking—an action he considered a character flaw. 

To be clear: wife beating is never justifiable. It is also against Nigeria’s Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act which prohibits violence against any persons in public or private life. Unfortunately, only once a state adopts and domesticates the law does the law become enforceable for the people living in that state, and the legislation has only been adopted and domesticated in 18 out of 36 states. Without formal adoption at the state-level as a legislative bill and assented by the executive body as a law, the national-level Act does not truly provide nationwide coverage and protection for women. Even when domesticated, women in Nigeria said to us that they often don’t see people following laws like this in practice at the community level. Someone may tell them the law exists, but their day-to-day experience doesn’t show them that it exists. 

Further, because of how VAW is normalized, women fear the backlash of speaking up against it. They are afraid of the consequences of telling their families and neighbors—who still believe things like wife beating is normal—that doing so is called gender-based violence and is wrong. Their fear shows the power and scale of the issue. It takes time and intentionality to change broader social norms which still accept VAW. These norms also explain why publicly saying “it’s not okay” can be extremely hard to do, because the social costs of doing so and risks of backlash are high.  

A crucial way of addressing these challenges is engaging men as allies for women’s rights and supporting women to become agents of change. To contribute to these efforts in Nigeria, we have established community platforms which bring together traditional and religious leaders, police officers, government officials, lawmakers, and healthcare workers to support women to advocate for an end to VAW through transforming harmful gender norms.  

For instance, Voice of the Male Champions engages male listeners over the radio in interactive discussions around tackling gender-based violence and women’s rightful participation in social and economic activities. Participants in our Men’s Engagement Program, raise awareness of laws protecting women while also sharing their personal insights and experiences from the program alongside experts, practitioners, and community leaders.  

What next in increasing women’s ability to speak against violence?  

The challenges and barriers to ending VAW everywhere are both unique and universal. Ending VAW will take time, sustained effort, and resources because behavioral changes in society are complex processes. But we cannot despair about the complexity or length of time it will take to end VAW because it is also our best bet for transformation. Though violence continues to be normalized and pervasive, women in Nigeria and elsewhere express their hope for sustaining changes they are steadily experiencing through awareness campaigns and shifting attitudes within their own communities.   

Change is happening. One of the Women Leaders said, “now, if a case of VAW is brought before the community leader they respond swiftly and seriously. This has made the men to also adjust because they don’t want their wives to report them to the community leaders.” 

This should inspire us to recommit and reinvest in these whole-of-community approaches that transforms norms as well as policies. Ending VAW calls for a long-term, holistic approach that includes rights-based awareness-raising, survivor-centered services, and continued advocacy at all levels for changes in policy, law, and practices. Most importantly, as the work of WfWI shows, we must ensure women are supported to drive this change as leaders and as agents of change rather than victims. We must collectively commit to creating an enabling environment by engaging community members as allies so that a woman’s self-efficacy can translate into her feeling able to safely and publicly speak out against violence.