Challenging and changing harmful social norms contributing to violence against women and girls

The worldwide Enough campaign aims to challenge and change the social acceptance and prevalence of VAWG/GBV (violence against women and girls/gender-based violence) by addressing the social norms that justify and perpetuate abuse and gender inequality. Covering the first three years of the campaign (November 2016 – December 2019), the purpose of this report is to 1) Document and assess progress and results based on the campaign Theory of Change; and 2) Identify learnings from the experience of the campaign to date:

• Engaging young people in urban settings
• A community mobilization approach in rural communities
• Integrating depth and breadth
• Campaign ownership with young people
• Addressing the multiple and complex drivers of VAWG/GBV
• Strategic multi-sectoral engagement
• WROs play a foundational role
• Young feminist artist collaborations for effective worldwide spikes
• Social media campaigns reach specific populations
• Regional capacity-building for young change agents

The findings are primarily based on qualitative data gathered from 13 of the 34 countries involved in the campaign. Ten countries were selected by the global team to represent a diversity of regions, campaign approaches, and stages of advancement. The campaign Theory of Change is based on the evidence that social norm change is possible when approached through holistic, long-term, and multi-level gender-transformative practice, and that people have the power to drive that change. The Enough Campaign focuses primarily on two domains of change: communities and institutions. These domains are interdependent and both are vital to ending VAWG/GBV,  but they require different approaches to campaigning.

The campaign recognizes the pivotal role of women’s rights organizations and feminist movements to support social norms and legal change in their settings, and so the campaign explicitly works to collaborate, support, and add value to these actors’ work. The  Enough  Campaign is strongly anchored in local contexts, with national campaigns developed jointly by Oxfam country teams and national women’s rights organizations, and feminist movement actors. Country teams and their partners design tailor-made campaigns that are relevant to their context; choosing the issues to be addressed, exact target groups, and most appropriate strategies.

This report is a summary of a longer report researched and written by Dr. Adrienne Wiebe – an Independent consultant, with inputs from Bethan Cansfield and Chara Poucha.