Gender-based violence among refugees in sub-Saharan Africa
Citation: Fry MW, Skinner AC, Wheeler SB. Understanding the relationship between male gender socialization and gender-based violence among refugees in sub-Saharan Africa. Trauma Violence, & Abuse. 2019;20(5):638–52.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: No.
Funding sources: The authors reported no external funding.
What is this? In this systematic review, the authors searched for documents about the relationship between gender socialisation and gender-based violence (GBV) by boys and men aged between 13 and 35 years of age in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors only included studies of forced migration, refugee populations, or post-conflict settings that were published in English between January 2014 and February 2016. They found 19 reports.
What was found? The authors found that the perpetration gender-based violence by men was positively associated with social pressures, and cultural and religious beliefs. Additionally, preexisting personal, societal, and cultural gender inequalities were often amplified during forced migration, which led to an increase in GBV. Culture, language, role-modelling, religion, and the context of violence shaped young men’s perspectives of women, gender relations, sexual desires, and dominance.
Implications: The authors of the review stated that understanding the social and developmental constructs for gender dominance, and of protective factors, can inform interventions to reduce gender-based violence. Limitations in the included studies meant that the findings were not generalisable to the larger sub-Saharan African community.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of gender, sex, religion, education, and social status.
This summary was prepared by Eszter Szocs, checked by Grace Meng, and finalized by William Summerskill.