Community mobilisation to prevent violence against women and girls in eastern India through participatory learning and action with women's groups facilitated by accredited social health activists: a before-and-after pilot study

Almost one in three married Indian women have ever experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence from husbands in their lifetime. We aimed to investigate the preliminary effects of community mobilisation through participatory learning and action groups facilitated by Accredited Social Health A...

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Published in:	BMC international health and human rights Vol. 20; no. 1; p. 6
Main Authors:	Nair, Nirmala, Daruwalla, Nayreen, Osrin, David, Rath, Suchitra, Gagrai, Sumitra, Sahu, Rebati, Pradhan, Hemanta, De, Megha, Ambavkar, Gauri, Das, Nibha, Dungdung, G Pramila, Mohan, Damini, Munda, Bahadur, Singh, Vijay, Tripathy, Prasanta, Prost, Audrey
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England BioMed Central Ltd 25-03-2020 BioMed Central BMC
Subjects:	Abused women Acceptability Accreditation Action Action learning Activism Activists Aggression Care and treatment Community Community involvement Community mobilisation Community participation Counseling Domestic violence Education Emotions Gender-based violence Girls Health Health education Health services Help seeking behavior Husbands India Indigenous communities Indigenous peoples Intervention Learning Legal services Meetings Methods Mobilization Nutrition Participatory learning and action Patriarchy Pilot projects Police Police community relations Police departments Prevention Rural areas Rural communities Services Supervisors Support groups Villages Violence Violence against women Violence against women and girls Witchcraft Women Women's associations Women's rights groups Womens health India Indigenous communities Participatory learning and action Community mobilisation Violence against women and girls India
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Summary:	Almost one in three married Indian women have ever experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence from husbands in their lifetime. We aimed to investigate the preliminary effects of community mobilisation through participatory learning and action groups facilitated by Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), coupled with access to counselling, to prevent violence against women and girls in Jharkhand, eastern India. We piloted a cycle of 16 participatory learning and action meetings with women's groups facilitated by ASHAs in rural Jharkhand. Participants identified common forms of violence against women and girls, prioritised the ones they wanted to address, developed locally feasible strategies to address them, implemented the strategies, and evaluated the process. We also trained two counsellors and two ASHA supervisors to support survivors, and gave ASHAs information about legal, health, and police services. We did a before-and-after pilot study involving baseline and endline surveys with group members to estimate preliminary effects of these activities on the acceptability of violence, prevalence of past year emotional and physical violence, and help-seeking. ASHAs successfully conducted monthly participatory learning and action meetings with 39 women's groups in 22 villages of West Singhbhum district, Jharkhand, between June 2016 and September 2017. We interviewed 59% (679/1149) of women registered with groups at baseline, and 63% (861/1371) at endline. More women reported that violence was unacceptable in all seven scenarios presented to them at endline compared to baseline (adjusted Odds Ratio [aOR]: 1.87, 95%: 1.39-2.52). Fewer women reported experiencing emotional violence from their husbands in the last 12 months (aOR: 0.55, 95% CI: 0.43-0.71), and more sought help if it occurred (aOR: 2.19, 95% CI: 1.51-3.17). In addition, fewer women reported experiencing emotional or physical violence from family members other than their husbands in the last 12 months (aOR: 0.41, 95% CI: 0.32-0.53, and aOR: 0.36, 95% CI: 0.26-0.50, respectively). Combining participatory learning and action meetings facilitated by ASHAs with access to counselling was an acceptable strategy to address violence against women and girls in rural communities of Jharkhand. The approach warrants further implementation and evaluation as part of a comprehensive response to violence.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1472-698X 1472-698X
DOI:	10.1186/s12914-020-00224-0