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 can also be used to identify the barriers that may exist to engaging faith and traditional leaders in efforts to end VAWG, so that the programme can work to dismantle these barriers.

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 faith leaders should promote women’s leadership and implement checks and balances to prevent these programmes becoming male-dominated or losing focus on the rights of women and girls. This can be done through:

• Forming equitable partnerships with women’s rights groups and consulting and listening to them at all stages of design and delivery.
• Centring the voices, experiences and priorities of women and girls from diverse backgrounds.
• Ensuring engagement with traditional and faith leaders focuses on actively addressing gender inequalities and transforming power imbalances between men and women.

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 understanding and transforming social norms and influencing broader social change.

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 diverse SOGIE are considered sinful and may be ostracised by communities and subjected to violence. For example, in some cases women with diverse SOGIE are at risk of so-called “corrective” rape, among other forms of violence and abuse. In other faith communities, people may believe that those with disabilities are being punished by God and use this to justify violence against them. In these contexts, where faith communities draw on interpretations of religious beliefs to justify violence against particular groups, it is critically important to work with trusted local partners to develop initiatives that challenge these beliefs, whilst mitigating against risks of backlash against those that initiatives are seeking to protect.

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 texts that condemn VAWG and promote gender equality and working with faith leaders to integrate these messages into their own teaching within communities. It is essential that all efforts to develop training packages that promote gender equitable interpretations of religious texts are co-created with trusted local partners to avoid potential backlash.

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 audiences such as through radio programmes, and to reach decision-makers through engagement in local and national government meetings and conferences. 

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 counselling initiatives should take a participatory approach, co-creating counselling curricula with religious leaders to ensure buy-in and ownership of these initiatives. Read more on building heathy relationships to prevent VAWG.

In many contexts, survivors of VAWG and the families of survivors of VAWG go to traditional and faith leaders to support dispute resolution, even when formal dispute resolution options are available. However, in contexts with existing patriarchal hierarchies and harmful practices that put women and girls at risk of VAWG, traditional and faith leaders may not take a survivor-centred approach to dispute resolution processes. For example, they may blame the survivor for the perpetrator’s actions or focus on retribution for the family rather than the survivor herself. In some contexts, this can involve expecting the survivor to marry the man who raped her or blaming a wife for “causing her husband to be violent towards her” by disobeying him.

Programmes can help to address this by training traditional and faith leaders in how to take a survivor-centred approach to dispute resolution, putting the agency, dignity and needs of a survivor at the centre of efforts to address relational-conflict. Efforts taking this approach should work closely with trusted local partners with a strong understanding of the context and risks of backlash against women in the community. Programmes should ensure that risks of backlash are identified and mitigated against. 

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 they are subjected to violence. The safety of women and girls is paramount. In addition, taking a do-no-harm approach requires that programmes recognise and engage with diverse faith and traditional leaders rather than focusing on one dominant group. This is important for mitigating against potential backlash within communities from groups who are excluded from programming efforts. Read more about how to work with women's organisations to handle resistance and backlash