What is doing to change harmful belief systems and gender norms

 Oxfam has been working with feminist and women’s organizations to eradicate male violence through specific programmes and campaigns for around 20 years. We have been supporting the agendas of feminist and women’s organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean through stand-alone programmes on women’s rights, working on initiatives for the eradication of all types of violence against women, the economic rights of women, transformative leadership and participation of women, and campaigns led by feminist organizations in 9 of the 13 countries in which we work. 

Much progress has been achieved since 2017. We have committed to going beyond a funding role in the campaign Enough! Together We Can End Violence Against Women and Girls2, which focuses on young women and men aged 15–25 to transform the belief systems and gender norms which reinforce violence against women. This campaign is being implemented in eight countries, led by feminist and women’s organizations, young activists and Oxfam.

As part of Oxfam’s role in the campaign, this report helps to identify and analyse the belief systems and gender norms that fuel violence against women and girls in the region. We hope it will focus attention on this pernicious problem, which reproduces beliefs and behaviours, particularly among young people, and which entrenches social impunity for male violence. Oxfam has had the support of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) in the management of the national research teams for collection and processing of data in seven countries, while data collection in Bolivia was coordinated by Oxfam, Coordinadora de la Mujer and, Diagnosis. 

The research findings are based on analysis of 4731 surveys carried out with young women and men aged 15–25 in March and April 2017, together with reflections derived from 47 focus group discussions and 49 in-depth interviews carried out in June and July 2017.4 The report provides an overview of regional trends, as well as a comparative analysis across Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua – the eight countries involved in the Enough campaign.

As well as information collected at country level, the report uses other key sources of insights on belief systems and gender norms, such as regional discussions convened by Oxfam, with broad participation from the feminist movement, and particularly the regional conference, ‘Resistance and alliances in the face of inequalities and violence against women in Latin America and the Caribbean’, held in Medellín, Colombia, in March 2016. The report also reflects the processes for Enough campaign design in the various countries and on a regional level, which have provided platforms for debate and collaboration between partner organizations, young people, and Oxfam teams. 

We trust that the analysis provided by this research will be useful for all actors working to eradicate violence against women and girls in the region, and that it will also help to improve coordination between the various programme and campaign strategies seeking to achieve change. In this sense, the report should be central to the design of country campaigns, and a tool for collaboration between feminist and women’s organizations, young people and Oxfam.

https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620524/rr-breaking-the-mould-250718-summ-en.pdf;jsessionid=C0B9203D92B240B38BE44DEFB762EC55?sequence=3