Together to End Violence Against Women (TEVAW)

Women in Tanzania suffer alarming rates of intimate partner violence that has detrimental effects on mental and physical health including an increased risk of HIV infection. Approximately one half (52.3% of male respondents and 58.3% of female respondents) in a 2011 study thought it was acceptable for a husband to beat his wife under certain conditions. To date, research on intimate partner violence has produced somewhat contradictory findings about the effectiveness of prevention efforts and has not sufficiently examined how structural drivers enable and constrain individual- and group-level attitudes and behaviors related to IPV.

Together to End Violence Against Women (TEVAW) is a research project funded by the South Africa Medical Research Council and implemented by World Education/Bantwana Initiative in partnership with Boston University’s Center for Global Health and Development. The TEVAW research will provide insight on effective approaches for intimate partner violence prevention within existing orphan and vulnerable children programming and contribute to a better understanding of the interplay between individual knowledge and attitudes of both men and women regarding IPV and how these influence and are influenced by gender norms at the community level.

Using a cluster randomized control study design, nine villages will be randomly assigned into one of three study arms, each comprised of 120 partnered women and their co-resident male partners.

In the study, one control group of women will participate in Bantwana’s savings and lending group intervention (known as LIMCA), in which they will join a savings and lending group and receive training in business skills, literacy, child nutrition and health, child protection, intimate partner violence, and HIV prevention.

A second group of women—Intervention Arm 1—will participate in LIMCA, while their male partners will participate in male peer-group workshops that explore gender norms, intimate partner violence prevention, and HIV prevention.

In Intervention Arm 2, women and men will participate in LIMCA, the men will attend male peer groups, and community dialogues with local leaders will be organized to explore similar topics to the male peer groups.

Bantwana will track whether and how attitudes toward gender equity and intimate partner violence change between groups.

Results of the study are expected in mid-2016.