Challenge

• Gender Based Violence (GBV) is endemic in Afghanistan which in turn supports the normalisation of the practice.

• The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in violence at home because of food scarcity, lack of employment, and increased health and food costs.

• Confinement measures during COVID-19 and overwhelmed health services, which are more focused on COVID-19, have restricted women’s access to GBV services.

• Lack of awareness about their rights vis-à-vis gender-based-violence, availability of service and low acceptance of seeking help outside of the home among the challenges that women face when seeking help. 

Our Social And Behavioural Insight

• Although most Afghans are against violence, GBV is seen as acceptable in certain situations by both men and women.

• Violence in the home is perpetrated by both men and women. Mother in laws play a significant role in perpetrating the practice.

• Violence in the home is seen as an internal family matter and seeking support outside the home is discouraged.

• Families are conscious of how they are perceived by neighbours and the larger community.

Campaign Objectives

• Shift community level perceptions of GBV and of both the survivor and the perpetrator by challenging the psychological and sociological factors which normalise the practice.

• Increase demand for GBV services by promoting the services of selected GBV service providers.

What We Did

• MAGENTA conducted formative research into perceptions of violence and perpetrators and survivors of that violence.

• This informed the development of creative concepts which were tested in FGDs with the target audience.

• Once the creative route was defined, MAGENTA developed scripts and creative briefs and worked with a creative partner to execute them.

• MAGENTA developed partnerships with top media platforms Tolo TV and Arman FM to sponsor talk show segments about the campaign

• Nine influencers were engaged to promote the campaign through their social media channels

• A baseline and endline assessment was conducted to assess the impact of the campaign

Impact

• The campaign was recognised in international media.

• 11% of women and 13% of men reported recognizing the Talk For Harmony logo or name.

• 43% of women and 65% of men reported seeing social media content related to argument/conflict de-escalation.

• 31% of respondents said that services to support women who experience violence at home is very important in the baseline. In the endline this number was 49%.

• At the end of the campaign the number of respondents who had a fixed idea about whether seeking support outside of the home was acceptable rose and the number of people who reported ‘it depends’ or ‘don’t know’ went down:

  • In the baseline 21% said it was acceptable and 28% said it wasn’t acceptable with 32% saying it depends and 16% said they didn’t know

  • In the endline this became 40% said it was acceptable and 55% said it wasn’t acceptable with 5% saying it depends and less than 1% said they didn’t know