Prevention of violence against children in and through schools in the Global South: an evidence review

• In Event: The Coalition for Good Schools: Voices from the Global South

Proposal

Much of what is known about preventing violence during childhood has emerged in the Global North except for data emerging from conflict settings or high-risk communities (Know Violence, 2017). The concern is that the scale of the problem and how it manifests in the Global South requires an urgent response - taking into account context and potentially a more focused approach (Author, 2019). It has been argued that VAC prevention interventions in higher income countries address forms of VAC (i.e. bullying and dating violence) that does not necessarily address the forms of violence and socio-cultural context that drive violence against children in the Global South (Gershoff 2017; Burton & Loeschutt 2013). The magnitude of violence against children in the Global South requires innovative approaches that has the potential to be taken to scale.

There are a number of prevention programmes in existence, but evidence from the Global South is still scant and emerging. To address this gap, the Coalition for Good Schools in collaboration with founding members of the Coalition from ICRW and Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town have conducted a comprehensive review of existing evidence on effective interventions to prevent violence at school. The authors will discuss the key findings of this review, and how it contributes to better understanding of prevention programs throughout the Global South.

Author

• Pranita Achyut, International Center for Research on Women