Challenge

• Violence against boys, girls and women, child labour and child marriage is prevalent across national cohorts in Lebanon and rising.

Our Social And Behavioural Insight

• National cohorts in Lebanon have a high awareness of the negative impacts and risks of of violence against children and women, child labour and child marriage

• Cognitive dissonance between the disapprobation of violence against children and women and the continued practice of the behaviours

• Deeply held beliefs that violence as a method of discipline is effective

• Stress and fatigue in vulnerable communities contributes to the adoption of negative coping mechanisms

• Notions of control and protection, are deeply entrenched in the collective identity

• Gender inequity plays a role in the experience or perpetration of harmful behaviours and is internalised through gender socialisation

• Social pressure impedes the adoption of positive practices

• The normalisation of harmful behaviours leads to sub-optimal practices

• The family unit takes primacy over individual wellbeing

• Puberty is associated with the end of childhood

What We Did

Define

To prevent violence against women and children, child marriage and child labour in Lebanon, MAGENTA implemented with UNICEF Lebanon the first national Social and Behavioral Change Communication Strategy (SBCC).

• To understand the behavioral factors behind these behaviors, MAGENTA conducted research through 140 focus groups and 47 key informant interviews.

Diagnose

• Magenta adopted a participatory approach through consultations, a strategy development workshop, and a creative development workshop with the Lebanese government and child protection practitioners.

• MAGENTA diagnosed the core idea of the strategic approach: empowering parents and adolescents to make better choices for their lives, their children's lives, and their families' lives.

Design

MAGENTA developed a series of activities to be implemented over a seven-year period. These programs include a Positive Parenting Toolkit, consisting of audiovisual materials, games, print materials, and a television series.

Testing

The test part of the toolkit included:   

1. a collection of IEC materials used in the field by the Lebanese government  

2. a pilot episode of a soap opera aligned with the national CCPE strategy and tested with a target audience through panels and focus group discussions 

3. the testing phase of an application for caregivers tested with an online user group 

Scaling Up

• Once the tools tested, MAGENTA disseminated them more widely nationwide, including the app.

• 20 episodes of the Soap opera were produced and broadcast on traditional and digital platforms in Lebanon.

Knowledge Management

• A report on the preliminary study has been written

• MAGENTA also developed a comprehensive set of guidelines, including discussion prompts, key messages, and suggestions for frontline workers when using the tools

Key Findings

Child Labour: participants would often mention they don’t consider this behavior as ideal but are often pushed to practicing it to provide their families.

Child Marriage:

• For girls, Child Marriage was often seen as a potential way out of their parent’s homes and into a life in which they expected to have more agency.

• At times, boys thought of Child Marriage as a sign of Maturity.

Violence Against Children: it is still believed by some to hold disciplinary value indicating shallow understanding of children’s developmental and cognitive needs and capacities.

Intimate Partner Violence: Ideologies including the expectation of women to empathise with men, the entitlement of men to violence and sex, and even communities’ expectations of the behaviour’s practice by men all contribute to its occurrence significantly.

Children Affiliated with Armed Violence: it happens due to a complex combination of structural drivers that present it as an alternative to make a living through organised crime, social drivers that promote the acceptance and prevalence of weapons in society, and psychological drivers that place a lot of emphasis on the expected benefit of carrying and using arms.