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Efforts to engage men and boys in violence prevention are most effective when they take a gender-transformative and whole-of-community approach. This involves creating space for men and boys, women and girls to reflect and transform their own personal attitudes and behaviour to influence broader social change. This includes recognising and challenging situations where male privilege acts to amplify the voices of male advocates while rendering women advocates invisible. Efforts to engage men and boys in a gender transformative way must also consider policy and institutional change to address…

Depending on programme objectives and approach, it might be appropriate to target specific groups of men and boys, e.g. targeted because of their:

Positions of authority: Preventing violence against women and girls requires a supportive legal and policy environment, as well as supportive leadership, and this requires advocacy work with men in positions of authority.
Influence: Men may also be engaged in violence prevention work because of their informal influence over other men in communities and peer networks.
Openness to change: Particular individuals or groups of men may be more open…

In many contexts, couples attend pre-marital counselling programmes with traditional and faith leaders and look to these leaders to provide guidance when conflict arises within a marriage. Traditional and faith leaders can therefore be in a strong position to condemn VAWG and promote gender equitable conflict-resolution techniques that prioritise respect, compromise, dignity and harmony within a household. However, some religious leaders may use these sessions to reinforce patriarchal hierarchies and seek to justify VAWG. Efforts to develop context-relevant and gender-equitable couples…

Faith leaders in many communities are in a unique position to reach large numbers of the community because they lead regular worship. Places of worship often bring together people from diverse backgrounds and walks of life, creating an opportunity to influence change and build common ground across communities. Programmes working with faith leaders should consider ways to encourage and support them to integrate messaging into their worship, sermons and preachings that condemn VAWG and promote gender equitable relationships and harmony in the home. They should consider ways to reach larger…

Religious texts are often used to justify social norms, expectations and accepted behaviours. Certain interpretations of religious texts, combined with harmful cultural and traditional practices, contribute substantially to the prevalence and acceptance of VAWG. Lessons from programmes that have worked with faith leaders recognise the importance of promoting more gender equitable interpretations of religious texts, which condemn VAWG and prioritise healthy and equitable relationships.

This could include training faith leaders to be gender champions, identifying passages within religious…

Programmes must ensure that women and girls’ rights are safeguarded at all times during efforts to engage traditional and faith leaders. Engagement with traditional and faith leaders can be transformative but can also lead to backlash against women and girls (as well as programme staff, beneficiaries, activists, and other community members). All programming must conduct a comprehensive risk analysis starting from the design phase and throughout implementation, ensuring that mitigation measures are put in place to minimise these risks and put in place processes to support women and girls if…

Efforts to engage faith and traditional leaders to end VAWG must recognise that women and girls are not a homogenous group and may face different risks of violence due to their backgrounds or identity features. For example, women and girls with diverse sexual orientations, gender expressions or identities and those with disabilities or from particular ethnic groups may be at greater risk of VAWG than other women and girls.

Different faith communities have varying views towards people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions (SOGIE). In some contexts, people with…

Understandings of the roles of men and women are fluid and differ between locations and faiths. Efforts to engage traditional and faith leaders in efforts to end VAWG should seek to understand how the core values of different faiths may promote or condone VAWG and how these are shaped in specific socio-cultural contexts. Programmes should provide space for traditional and faith leaders to reflect on local understandings and often conflicting ideals of masculinity and femininity, manhood and womanhood, and how they relate to VAWG. Promoting both self and collective reflection is key to understa…

Efforts to engage traditional and faith leaders as allies in the pursuit of gender equality and the ending of VAWG must be shaped by the work of women’s rights organisations and be accountable to women’s organisations and movements. Where culturally safe and possible, these initiatives should also include WROs within their leadership and decision-making. Without this, programming to engage traditional and faith leaders may inadvertently reinforce harmful gender stereotypes and social norms and contradict or undermine the efforts of women’s rights movements. Efforts to engage traditional and…

Programmes seeking to engage with traditional and faith leaders should identify and build partnerships with those who are sympathetic to the idea of women’s rights and recognise the need to end VAWG. Not all traditional and faith leaders will be allies in these efforts. Programmes can conduct a mapping of traditional and faith leaders through a Gender Inclusion, Power and Politics analysis. This could be done in collaboration with local CSOs and WROs to identify which leaders have already expressed support for these groups and who may be open to using their influence to end VAWG. This analysis…