Enough: Together We Can End Violence Against Women and Girls

Oxfam International is testing campaigning methodologies and integrating these into programmatic interventions to challenge negative social norms. Several country-specific examples of campaign endeavours follows below. But one technique being used across the countries is the engagement being fostered through the telling of stories on the Enough website of people standing up and speaking out against the idea that violence toward women and girls is normal behaviour. There, too, people are being asked to watch and share the Enough campaign video to show why it is time to #SayEnough to violence against women and girls.

Examples of country-specific activities:

In Pakistan, the campaign was launched at Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, in an event organised by Oxfam in partnership with Aurat Foundation. It featured a rickshaw drive in 24 districts, across Punjab and Sindh provinces, in which more than 3,000 rickshaws driven by advocates for women's rights displayed campaign messages, carried artwork, and played feminist folk songs. The accompanying ceremony, featuring speakers like the Chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women, was attended by representatives of civil society, diplomats, media, academia, and students of Arid Agriculture University.

Oxfam India (OIN) launched its campaign Bano Nayi Soch: Buno Hinsa Mukt Rishtey (Be a New Thought: Weave Violence Free Lives) on November 25 2016, followed by state-level launches and campaign interventions during the 16 Days of Activism and International Women’s Day. For example, OIN participated in the International Women's Day strike, which was organised by women's rights organisations in Delhi. OIN staff wore red, and an out-of-office mail was posted by staff on their respective emails to show solidarity with the strike. Staff actively participated in an engaging internal conversation on how gender friendly is Oxfam India. The overall positive norm the campaign is focussing on is "Mutually respectful, equal and nurturing relationships which are always free of any kind of violence". The campaign is currently being implemented in 385 villages in 33 districts in 5 states of India (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh). The intended group of the campaign is young people in the age group of 13 to 29 years.

Other OIN campaign strategies:

• Two major partnerships where OIN promoted its campaign are the Global Citizen (GC) Festival and the Mumbai Film Festival. Oxfam India helped the GC Festival team develop gender-based actions that young people could undertake to win an entry to the GC music concert. The concert had many Indian and foreign celebrities from the film and music industry. The main attraction was Coldplay. The Festival was also used as a platform to generate awareness online and during the concert on social norms underpinning domestic violence.
• OIN in partnership with Mumbai Film Festival, 2016 offered an award called Oxfam Best Film on Gender Equality. The award went to the movie "Lipstick under my Burqa", directed by Alankrita Shrivastava. The film was denied the necessary certification for commercial release on the grounds that it was "lady-oriented". After a long controversial battle and with 11 international awards on its back, it was finally released in India in July 2017. During the censorship ban, OIN stood by the film and created online engagement around the issues of women's autonomy. Prior to the release of the film in July 2017, OIN along with the filmmaker and the cast organised a pre-release event. The event included a panel discussion on the theme "The Influence of Film on Gender Norms". Among other panelists, the panel consisted of the director of the film. Moderated by a well-known film critic, the event was held in collaboration with the American Center in Delhi. OIN had commissioned a research to understand the influence and impact films had in the communities where OIN worked. The research findings were disseminated during the event.
• In 2018, OIN will focus on the campaign theme "Respect for Women's Autonomy in decision making within the family and community". The aim is to reach 3.3 million people using a range of interventions, such as holding campaign spikes and public events, developing technology platforms, building capacities of women rights organsiations and networks, and working with youth and women collectives.

In Bolivia, as part of Enough, the Collective Rebellion, the Women's Coordinator, and Oxfam have come together to understand the social norms that reproduce machismo (hyper-masculinity that values, among other things, aggression) and leads to violence against women and girls. To fully understand young people's relationships, collaborators used a participatory research methodology and engaged 220 young people organised by 15 groups of activists in the cities of La Paz, El Alto, and Santa Cruz. These young people reflected on current conceptualisations of romantic love that are used to control women in relationships and shared ideas on how to challenge these conceptualisations. These ideas came to life in the campaign ACTUA, which is centred on challenging violence in young people's social networks and creating groups of young people who question violence. Campaigning methodologies include public events discussing a new vision of love based on foundations of freedom and equality and videos on social media that highlight the problem of indifference to violence in dating relationships (the most popular video has been viewed more than 600,000 times on Facebook). They have also built a strategic alliance with the open television channel RED UNO in its young people's programme BIGOTE. The campaign has involved public figures and celebrities, and young people have organised activities (concerts, mural painting, song contests, graffiti, sports activities) and encouraged a wide range of young people to join the campaign.

In July 2017, Oxfam Papua New Guinea, through its gender justice programme, ran a week-long workshop in Port Moresby to develop a "Stop violence against women" campaign strategy. The workshop, attended by 25 participants representing Oxfam's partner organisations from around the country, not only sought to enhance understanding of behaviour that leads to violence against women but also to create a campaign strategy and identify platforms that can be used to advocate behavioural change.

Violence against Women and Girls

Oxfam observes that women and girls face violence throughout their lives: More than 700 million women alive today were married as children, 200 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation - with the majority of girls being cut before the age of 5 - and 30% of women will experience intimate partner violence. Studies have found higher rates of violence among women experiencing multiple discriminations, including indigenous women, lesbian and bisexual women, and women with disabilities.

No single factor alone causes partner violence; however, evidence shows [PDF] that one of the strongest factors that predicts this form of abuse is discriminatory shared beliefs (social norms) about what is normal and appropriate in relationships. These can include that a man has a right to assert power over a woman or that a man has a right to discipline women. Unhealthy relationships often start early - with young men and women thinking behaviours such as teasing and name calling are normal parts of relationships. Societies across the world promote masculine jealously and control as a desirable way to demonstrate love. Films, music, soap operas reinforce these ideas, as can parents and friends.

Some findings on Enough campaign reach:

• To date, the ACTUA campaign in Bolivia has reached 22,000 people who discussed the issues on social media and shared messages among their friends and, above all, expressed their willingness to actively act against violence. The campaign has a group of about 50 activists who provoke reflection among their peers and contribute to the change of ideas and beliefs about violence against women and girls.
• OIN's consolidated outreach (where people have heard the message at least once) for 2016-17, which includes both online and on-the-ground activities, is 3.5 million. The engagement outreach (in terms of signing of the pledges and some preliminary action on social media) is 1.27 million.