Using digital technology to engage and mobilise young people to end violence in intimate relationships: lessons from Bolivia

ABSTRACT

On 14 February 2017, celebrated as St Valentine's Day in many contexts throughout the world and associated with lovers, a new campaign called ‘ACTÚA, Detén la violencia’, was launched in Bolivia. The campaign aims to tackle violence in young people's relationships by encouraging individuals to take action in the presence of violence. A little over a year after the campaign launched, this article analyses the experience gained of using social media in the campaign, as a way of catalysing and encouraging change and questioning of gender inequality and the social norms that justify and perpetuate gender-based violence against women and girls. It shares research and experience from Oxfam and its partner organisations Colectivo Rebeldía and Coordinadora de la Mujer.

Le 14 février 2017, date associée aux amoureux à laquelle on fête la Saint-Valentin dans de nombreux contextes de par le monde, une nouvelle campagne appelée «ACTÚA, Detén la violencia» a été lancée en Bolivie. Cette campagne a pour objectif de lutter contre les violences dans les relations entre les jeunes en les encourageant à agir lorsqu’ils sont témoins de violences. Un peu plus d’un an après le lancement de cette campagne, cet article analyse l’expérience acquise en ce qui concerne l’utilisation des réseaux sociaux dans la campagne, en vue de catalyser et d’encourager des changements et de mettre en question les inégalités entre les sexes, et les normes qui justifient et perpétuent la violence sexiste à l’encontre des femmes et des filles. Il présente les résultats de recherches et l’expérience d’Oxfam et de ses organisations partenaires Colectivo Rebeldía et Coordinadora de la Mujer.

El 14 de febrero de 2017, fecha asociada con los enamorados y celebrada en muchos países como Día de San Valentín, en Bolivia se lanzó una nueva campaña llamada “actúa, Detén la violencia”. Ésta se propone detener la violencia que se presenta en las relaciones entre personas jóvenes, animándolas a tomar medidas en contextos de violencia. Después de un año de iniciada la campaña, el presente artículo analiza cómo las redes sociales fueron usadas en la misma para catalizar e impulsar el cambio, cuestionando la desigualdad de género y las normas sociales que justifican y perpetúan la vbg contra mujeres y niñas. Además, da cuenta de las investigaciones realizadas en este sentido y de la experiencia obtenida por Oxfam y sus organizaciones contrapartes: Colectivo Rebeldía y Coordinadora de la Mujer.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender-based violence
• information and communication technologies
• social media
• development
• Bolivia
• violence against women and girls
• Oxfam
• ACTÚA, Detén la violencia

Acknowledgements

The campaign would not be one without the participation and true commitment of the 15 groups of young activists and their bases involved in ACTÚA: Fortaleza, Proyecto Punto 0, Colectivo Wiñay Wara, Visión Juvenil (AVE), YOLO, Winter Institute, Red Virus, Siempre Latente, Sonrisas Escondidas, Pendiente, Centro Cultural San Isidro, Red Tú Decides, LiterArte, Studio Vértigo, U-Kiss, Rompiendo Esquemas, Rajem, Siempre Latente, and Red Amanecer (the last five groups participated in the first year). I would also like to acknowledge the excellent work our feminist partner organisations are doing on the ground in order to move the campaign forward: from Colectivo Rebeldía, Viviana Rodríguez Barrancos, Lupe Perez Cabrera, Teresa Alarcón, Moira Rimassa, and Wacolda Terceros, and from the Coordinadora de la Mujer, Laura Guachalla, Adriana Zurita, Monica Novillo, Maria Angela, and Luz Lima. I would also like to thank Lourdes Montero, Gender Justice programme co-ordinator and Lisbeth España, Gender Justice programme officer, for their trust and guidance. It is an honour to work alongside such passionate and dedicated women. As this article feeds on many of the findings from the feminist researchers Lola Gutiérrez León and Dunia Mokrani Chávez, I would like to thank both of them for helping the campaign team to better understand how to challenge social norms that justify GBV, in particular VAWG. Finally, a very special thank you to Caroline Sweetman for her dedicated support and meticulous corrections that made it possible for me to write this article.

Notes on contributor

Sandrine Muir-Bouchard is a communications specialist and campaigner working for Oxfam in Bolivia. Postal address: 8232 Calle 16, Zona Calacoto, Entre calles Claudio Aliaga y Roberto Prudencio, La Paz, Bolivia. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 Social norms are a collectively shared belief about what is typical and appropriate in a given setting among a specific group. Social norms provide often unspoken but widely understood and acknowledged rules or expectations of behaviours. There are two kinds of social norms: (1) descriptive norms, or what is normal, typical behaviours or practice in a setting (i.e. what people do); and injunctive norms, or what are expected or appropriate types of behaviour (i.e. what people should do).

2 Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a broad umbrella term, defined by the United Nations as ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in a public or private life’. It includes many different forms of violence against women and girls, such as intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, trafficking, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation.

3 For more information about the different strategies to shift social norms, see https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2016.1194020.

4 The research findings from the focus groups can be read in more detail at https://bit.ly/2jno8Nc. They were analysed by Lola Gutiérrez León and Dunia Mokrani Chávez, two independent evaluators. Their findings can be consulted at https://bit.ly/2FycoQp.

5 The interaction rate is the number of reactions (likes, shares, and comments) in relation to the number of people you have ‘reached’ (who received the content on their ‘wall’).

6 Eighty per cent of Bolivians over 14 years old use 55 megas or less per day of internet on their mobile phone (AGETIC 2016, 66).