What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls Evidence Review, September 2017

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a pervasive social problem across the globe, but varies in prevalence and severity. The 2013 mapping of the Global Burden of Disease showed the prevalence of physical and sexual VAWG differed between countries, and between ethnic groups and social classes within countries. Two central, and overlapping, sets of ideas and practices driving VAWG are those related to gender relations and those on the use of violence. The term social norms essentially captures how a community or social group normally ‘does’ gender or uses violence. Social norms are dynamic and changeable and are influenced by age and socioeconomic status. They are a reference point for individual thought and action. The large categories of social norms such as on violence, are built from norms related to more narrow ideas and behaviours such as those on punishing children. Figure 1 illustrates how more focused social norms contribute to the broad social norms on gender and violence. (From the document). Record #5744