Question

How Have Communities Help Gender Based Violence victims

Answer 1

Violence decreases where social ties within neighbourhoods are strong and residents are willing to intervene.

Ending gender-based violence

• Social supports within the community colour the experience of intimate partner violence. Violence decreases where social ties within neighbourhoods are strong and residents are willing to intervene. Interacting with social networks can increase the scrutiny of a couple’s relationship, prompting others to step in to protect the abused partner, bring cultural and religious proscriptions against violence to bear, or confront abusive partners about their behaviour. Family and friends often provide material and emotional support to people subjected to abuse. Social support from family members is linked to both a lower likelihood of being subjected to intimate partner violence and a lower frequency of abuse. Social ties with friends may also deter intimate partner violence.
• Collective efficacy is central to community interventions to interrupt violence. In neighbourhoods with higher levels of disruption (like poverty and high residential mobility), community members may be less able to prevent violence because they lack social connections and trust. Those deficits can be overcome, however, in neighbourhoods with greater collective efficacy. Collective efficacy reflects a community’s belief in its capacity to act to end violence and a resulting active engagement by community residents. To exercise collective efficacy, residents must have mutual trust and the willingness to intervene to exercise social control. Strong preexisting personal ties among community residents are not necessary.
• Collective efficacy relies on the capacity for social action—a shared commitment to intervening to stop violence and the readiness to act on that commitment—not the interpersonal relationships of the actors. The existence of both cohesion and willingness to intervene is essential in decreasing violence. While social ties make the exercise of control possible, violence abates only when control is exercised. Collective efficacy also contributes to the prevention of intimate partner violence. Studies have repeatedly shown that communities with less collective efficacy experience more intimate partner violence. And inversely, intimate partner violence decreases in communities with greater collective efficacy.

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