Challenging norms that support violence

It has been established beyond doubt that in various societies of the world, there are values, beliefs and norms which form part of their heritage and shape individual behaviours as well as beliefs from generation to generation, especially in the traditional African society.

It has, however, also been established that some of these norms have been found to encourage all forms of violence especially gender-based violence, more obvious in patriarchal societies.

However, such identified violence-supporting norms can be challenged. And in many societies, there have been conscious efforts towards eroding such norms as part of a holistic approach to curbing all forms of violence across the world.

Fighting such cultural and social norms supportive of violence has evolved through various stages and aggressive advocacy across the world.

However, such concerted efforts have yielded little or no results in many societies and there is the need for more platforms to re-orientate and educate people on why there should be a change. For such efforts to be effective, it cannot be in isolation, must be integrated with other approaches and must cut across various spheres.

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All efforts must work as a system with the underlying focus of changing cultural and social norms that promote violence, and such interventions must be based on the understanding that cultural norms are fully ingrained and cannot be changed overnight. Also, norms and belief vary according to society and can therefore not be approached using the same form of advocacy. Each intervention process must be tailored towards particular areas and orientation for effective results.

For a diverse and broad population, there is a challenge of deciding what works best as the people may not operate by the same guiding cultural beliefs and norms. Consequently, any intervention in such areas must be tailored towards reaching individual groups within a whole because addressing the diverse population of such a society will be conflicting.

Though some gender stereotypes, beliefs about masculinity and role of specific gender are the same in many communities, there are some basic differences; and these diversity are usually the most difficult to eradicate, especially those that border on aggression and violence or the relationship between intimate partners.

A key part of eradicating violence; supportive norms is involving men in advocacy as they will have more success reaching their peers without undermining the social expectations and pride of masculinity. They also are more liable to record huge success in teaching their peers that violence is not equal to male power or a sign of masculine dominance.

People should also be enlightened on the evil of engaging in habits that may push them to violence. For instance, some men will never beat their partners except they are under the influence of drugs and alcohol.  Such people should be made to understand how such habits take them away from their normal self and the abyss it can lead them into.

In some traditional societies there must be reorientation and a conscious enlightenment to the fact that a female child is not inferior and also deserves care.

Often, messages of some interventions targeted at reducing masculinity of men prone to violence do not produce required results. Research indicates that messages like ‘real men don’t hit women’ rather than change orientation become mere slogans that over time make the message weak as most men are not moved by messages highlighting the consequences of violence on their partner. But experts and researchers have revealed that messages that border on damaging effect of intimate partner violence on children yield better positive results and should be given prominence during interventions.

No woman deserves to be a victim of abuse and violence, consequently, people need to open their minds to changing norms that support violence and also speak against such.