Citation

Sommer M, Muñoz-Laboy M, Williams A, Mayevskaya Y, Falb K, Abdella G, Stark L. Child Abuse Negl. 2018; 79: 154-163.

Affiliation

Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, Department of Population and Family Health, 60 Haven Avenue, B-4, Suite 432, New York, NY, 10032, United States. Electronic address: ls2302@columbia.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2018.02.002

PMID

29471217

Abstract

Violence against women and girls is a global concern, and particularly salient in humanitarian settings. Successful efforts to prevent gender-based violence in humanitarian settings must address a wide range of issues, from discriminatory laws to explicit community support for violence, and yet, at the core of these efforts is reducing oppressive gender and social norms. This study examined local attitudes towards and social norms around responding to physical and sexual abuse of girls through interviews conducted with adolescent girls (n = 66) and with caregivers (n = 58) among two conflict-affected populations: villages in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudanese and South Sudanese refugees in Ethiopian camps. The findings suggest how communities use violence as a tool to enforce the importance of girls practicing community-defined "good" adolescent girl behavior, and have implications for gender-based violence programming among other conflict-affected populations.

Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

Adolescence; DRC; Gender norms; Gender-based violence; Refugee