Addressing School-Related Gender-Based Violence in Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, Zambia and Ethiopia

This report synthesizes findings from four scoping studies of policy, practice and evidence on SRGBV in Zambia, Togo, Ethiopia and Côte d'Ivoire carried out in 2016-2017–with insights of relevance for any country seeking to strengthen their work to address SRGBV. This work forms part of End Gender Violence in Schools (EGVS), an initiative led by UNICEF, with support from Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and UNGEI, which aims to strengthen the production and use of high quality evidence in order to build effective approaches to address SRGBV. Data were collected through stakeholder interviews, workshops and analyses of research, policy and programme texts. The research design offers a valuable framework through which to evaluate and strengthen national action on SRGBV through collecting evidence on: prevalence and patterns of SRGBV; laws, policies and plans; structures and partnerships; responses in and around schools; prevention through teaching and learning; and systems for data collection.

Across the four countries, there was evidence from quantitative and qualitative studies of commonplace corporal punishment, sexual harassment, bullying, intimate partner violence, and child abuse. In recent years, all four countries have strengthened legislation and policy linked to SRGBV, with their frameworks including adoption of international conventions, national constitutions, laws spanning sectors including education, gender equality, health and justice, and policies and plans at national, mid and local levels.

In the four EGVS countries, administrative structures at national, mid and local levels have been created to enable effective implementation of laws and policies, through for example mainstreamed gender units and focal points at all levels. The four countries have focused on strengthening reporting and responses to cases of SRGBV, particularly child sex abuse. They have developed professional codes of conduct for schools, and school-based reporting systems. An array of promising initiatives have been implemented in schools in the four countries, often through collaborations between governments, development partners and NGOs. Although some of the interventions to prevent and respond to SRGBV in the four countries have been evaluated, many do not routinely collect monitoring data or evaluate effectiveness, resulting in governments, NGOs and schools having insufficient evidence to make decisions relating to SRGBV.