Special Symposium: Social and gender norms and violence against children: exploring their role and strategies for prevention

ABSTRACT

Violence against children occurs in all countries, affecting children of all ages, genders, race and socio-economic strata. A multiplicity of factors contributes to children’s experience of violence. Social and gender norms can act as risk and protective factors exposing children to violence or preventing them from having well-being and healthy development. This Special Symposium was conceived of during the first International Viable and Operable Ideas for Child Equality (VOICE) Conference in 2018 in Bali, Indonesia. The four manuscripts in this Special Symposium illustrate with evidence the importance of social norms to preventing violence against children and the importance of understanding norms in context. The authors find that understanding how geographic location, social cohesion, group roles and identities, age and gendered expectations inform whether, when and which children experience violence, who perpetrates it, and how individuals and communities respond to it. The global COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how rapidly behaviours can shift towards caregiving and health, as well as against it. If we are to prevent violence against children, and ensure the safety, well-being, and opportunity to thrive for all children, advancing our understanding of norms in relation to violence against children is critical to effective programming and learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• violence against children
• child protection
• social norms
• Special Symposium

Introduction

Globally, each year, at least 1 billion children between the ages of 2 and 17 years experienced some form of physical, sexual, or emotional violence or neglect (Hillis et al., 2016). Violence against children occurs in multiple, often overlapping forms and by different perpetrators including parents and caregivers, teachers, other authority figures, community and religious leaders, neighbours, peers, and adolescents’ intimate partners. Violence against children occurs across settings (including in the home, community, schools and other institutions) as well as online. It takes place everywhere around the world, affecting children of all ages, genders, and socio-economic strata. A 2018 meta-analysis and systematic review of 643 studies from 171 countries found that household members most commonly perpetrate emotional and physical violence against children, while children aged 9–18 years are at high risk of violence from teachers and authority figures (Devries, 2018). Yet, beyond available prevalence estimates, violence against children remains often hidden and underreported (Pinheiro, 2006).

Girls and boys both experience violence, with girls at higher risk for sexual violence, early or forced marriage, for example. Boys are more likely to be victims of physical fights, assaults or homicide though they are at risk for sexual violence as well. Several risk factors for violence against children have been identified and include, for example, social and gender norms, gender identity and sexual orientation, poverty, functional impairments, stigmatised illnesses, such HIV and AIDS or COVID-19, being a migrant, and being forcibly displaced through conflict or disaster. Violence starts early in childhood with 75% of children between the ages of 2–4 years globally experiencing past month physical and/or psychological aggression by their caregiver (UNICEF, 2017). Experience of violence in childhood is associated with the risk for experience or perpetration of violence as an adult (Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, 2015; Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, 2019). Violence in childhood has an impact on child health and well-being; this is evidenced by increased risk for or actual delays in socio-emotional development and learning and impaired physical and mental health (Butchart, 2006; Norman et al., 2012).

Violence against children is a public health and human rights concern; the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include specific targets to end various forms of violence against children including violent discipline, sexual violence, and intimate partner violence. Though widespread, violence against children is preventable. The INSPIRE handbook describes seven evidence-based key strategies to prevent violence against children providing a path forward for countries to undertake this work (World Health Organization, 2016). These strategies include establishing safe environments, parent and caregiver supports and working on norms and values. Social and gender norms, the gendered beliefs of appropriate actions in a given group of people, are among critical underlying factors that allow for and sustain violence across age groups, gender identities, perpetrators, and contexts. For instance, norms can increase or reduce social acceptability of violence against children, shape its reporting and under-reporting, and perpetuate social expectations, for example of physical and emotional violence as forms of discipline (Lokot, 2020; Taylor, 2011). The literature on how norms affect violence against children is growing; so far, social and gender norms have been found to contribute to several forms of violence against children, including child, early and forced marriage, forced genital mutilation/cutting, and corporal punishment. Social and gender norms can also act as protective factors preventing the use of violence against children and promoting child well-being and healthy development.

As context influences norms strongly, one blanket approach simply to enhance or create new, positive norms might not lead to a sustained change. If norms changes are to be acceptable, effective, and sustained, strategies to address norms related to violence against children may need to address linked well-being and child development concerns (Shonkoff et al., 2011) such as gender inequalities in health and education for girls. To do this, organisations may conduct formative work to co-design, adapt, or contextualise their programmes to shift targeted social and gender norms responsive to violence against children and its linked health and developmental outcomes. Accordingly, organisations should be equipped with a flexible approach to design and evaluate contextually appropriate social and gender norm change programmes focused on preventing and responding to violence against children.

This Special Symposium was conceived of during the first International Viable and Operable Ideas for Child Equality (VOICE) Conference in 2018 in Bali, Indonesia. The conference was co-hosted by PUSKAPA and the Care and Protection of Children (CPC) Learning Network and focused on the broad rubric of children’s rights, child protection, and family welfare. Three themes were central to the conference given their importance to how children are growing up in today’s world: climate change and migration, toxic social norms and values, and technology. With over 250 participants from 23 countries, the conference included 52 presentations and a multi-day learning series on social norms in relation to violence against children. The event gave special emphasis to understanding and sharing research and programmatic findings for social norms approaches to prevent and respond to violence against children. This Special Symposium provides an opportunity to explore both the conceptual and empirical dimensions of these issues.

In their article, ‘How far do parenting programmes help change norms underpinning violence against adolescents? Evidence from low and middle-income countries’, Marcus et al. (2020) identified a critical gap in the literature on parenting programmes to reduce violence against children. Evidence on parenting programmes’ effectiveness to prevent violence against children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and for parents of adolescents is still limited. The authors conducted a narrative review of the literature on parenting programmes for caregivers of adolescents in LMICs aimed to prevent child marriage, sexual violence, neglect, physical and emotional abuse. Parenting programmes to reduce physical abuse and neglect focused on enhancing primary caregiver skills such as communication and provided new knowledge on the effects of physical punishment or children’s rights. The authors also found that parenting programmes to prevent child marriage and sexual violence use different interactive strategies to understand and challenge harmful norms. Despite mixed findings of the impacts of parenting programmes to reduce violence and change harmful social norms, the authors instilled hope that the scaling up of parenting programmes could have a broader impact on shifting norms to reduce and prevent violence against children. The authors underlined several aspects for parenting programmes to significantly change community-level norms. Parenting programmes should reach a larger number of community members, and include both women and men as primary caregivers. Because interactive community-based activities to understand and challenge social norms are crucial to achieving change, programmes should provide sufficient time for parents’ participation and engagement. Parenting programmes should be offered together with other interventions to reduce other risk factors, such as poverty, that can exacerbate violence against children and adolescents. In many LMICs, parenting programmes are already implemented, but with insufficient resources to address harmful social norms. This article reminded policymakers and practitioners that resources are still needed to enhance parenting programmes’ scope and quality for sustainable social norms changes.

In ‘Gender-norms, violence and adolescence: Exploring how gender norms are associated with experiences of childhood violence among young adolescents in Ethiopia’, Murphy et al. (2020) contributed to a growing evidence base that community-level social norms can hold stronger influence over household violence against children than individual or caregiver attitudes. The study aggregated quantitative estimates of household gender norms to construct measures of community-level norms, which were strongly associated with young adolescent exposure to household physical or psychological violence. Further disaggregation of findings by rural versus urban areas suggest a more complex picture, with community norms holding strong influence over household violence against children in rural areas. In urban areas, individual attitudes were more strongly associated with child household violence exposure, possibly due less social cohesion. Qualitative results provide insight into gender differences in the causes, nature, and consequences of household physical and psychological violence against children. The results highlight reductions in violence in older adolescence, possibly due to gendered shifts in social expectations for caregiver behaviours toward an adolescent girl versus boy after puberty. Other explanations include how exposure to harsh physical punishment and psychological treatment pushes some adolescent girls and boys out of the caregiver household, ‘by running away, distress migration or suicide attempts’ (Murphy M, 2020). Programme implications highlight the need to work at the community level to shift gender norms toward protective and preventative behavioural expectations and positive, non-violent disciplinary practices of caregivers and other adults in the household.

In ‘Women’s business?: A social network study of the influence of men on decision-making regarding female genital mutilation/cutting in Senegal’, Shell-Duncan et al. (2020) investigated how members of girls’ social ‘network[s] of care’ negotiate decision-making over female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), contributes insights into gender and age hierarchies in patterns of influence and power in final FGM/C decisions. Quantifying qualitative data, the study explores levels of influence in decision-making by diverse network actors, finding that in some contexts men in favour of FGM/C exert stronger influence over final decision-making, at times superseding preferences of older women in the network. In other contexts, men, often as fathers, advocate for abandonment of FGM/C, while younger men express preferring to marry a woman who had not undergone FGM/C. The authors highlight that older and younger men play multiple direct and indirect, and shifting roles in FGC/M decision-making, with variation within and across ethnic groups in two regions of Senegal. In South Senegal, men and older women have upheld FGM/C practices under secrecy due to a legal ban, while men’s roles have become increasingly obscured or excluded in efforts to protect them from police arrest. In contrast, in Central Senegal, the strength of gender norms tying FGM/C with girls’ marriageability and social inclusion have diminished over time, with both younger and older men playing important new roles in advocating for and further diffusing FGM/C abandonment within their communities and across Senegal.

Responding to the need for programme design insights, in ‘Programmatic norms change to eliminate violence against children: Insights for practitioners and researchers from a UNICEF global mapping study’, Cookson et al. (Cookson TP, 2020), present practical approaches grounded in experiences working to change harmful gender norms related to violence against children in diverse settings. The authors conducted a mapping study of UNICEF’s gender socialisation initiatives that were delivered in seven regions, including Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, Western and Central Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and Asia and the Pacific. The study recommends that international organisations aiming to change gender norms: (1) contextualise programmes as gender norms of violence are closely related to the historical, social, political, and economic contexts; (2) involve different agents of gender socialisation, including peers, primary caregivers, teachers, and other authority figures; (3) consider positive gender roles as a primary strategy in child well-being programmes, including for violence against children prevention; (4) generate programme data to prove impacts and improve intervention; (5) provide technical gender experts to improve the capacities of local organisations; and (6) offer longer funding cycles for programmes that are aimed to change gender norms. These flexible principles provide insight for those working on programme design across multiple regions to transform harmful gender norms into protective factors that will also enhance children’s well-being and development, particularly girls.

These four manuscripts in this Special Symposium illustrate with evidence the importance of social norms to preventing violence against children and the importance of understanding norms in context. Across different settings and studies, the authors find that context includes an understanding of how geographic location, social cohesion, group roles and identities, age and gendered expectations inform whether, when and which children experience violence, who perpetrates it, and how individuals and communities respond to it. Localising our understanding of social and gender norms is critical then from a both research and programmatic perspectives. This includes putting norms in their context; for example, how do the structural, systemic, and social interactions shape which norms are strongly influential, tightly held, or show an opportunity for change. Across these studies we see that social and gender norms matter for the nature, extent, and consequences of violence, and the prevention of and response to violence against children. How programmes shift norms and create a safer and healthier world for children, their family and community requires time and resources, putting children, their families and communities at the centre of this work, to build relationships, conduct formative assessments, work in partnership in programme design, evaluation, and learning, in order to facilitate and sustain change.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how rapidly behaviours can shift towards caregiving and health as well as against it. Reports of violence against children have escalated as families experience increased economic, social, and health stress; schools, daycares and other places of child safety (and risk) closed; forced migration; and deepening inequalities (Bhatia, 2020). Pandemic recovery presents both an opportunity to transform health, education, and economic structures, and build more compassion and creativity into programming through stronger, locally-led partnerships. Pandemic response and recovery also presents risks, as reverting back to a pre-pandemic status quo may not undo increased incidences of violence and harm that many children experience at home and online during the pandemic, nor reduce their risk for violence in schools, daycare centres and other settings. These four manuscripts focus on violence against children in LMICs and they point to similar issues of concern and justice in the high-income countries, where violence against children is also prevalent and increasing in the pandemic. If we are to reach the goals laid out in the SDGs, to prevent violence against children in all its forms, and ensure the safety, well-being and opportunity to thrive for all children, advancing our understanding of social and gender norms in relation to violence against children is critical to effective prevention intervention research, programming, and learning.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).