Engagement objective

World Vision has been working on an 'anti child sex trafficking programme' in West Bengal. As part of its efforts World Vision works with women's groups, children's groups, adolescent girl’s groups as well as men's groups.

To strengthen their efforts, they engaged StratComm to develop a package to support learning and perspective building for boys.

Our process

We initiated the engagement with a situation analysis. To develope a deep contextual understanding of the ground realities several intensive consultations were held with World Vision’s field and project management teams. Multiple interactions were also undertaken with the key target population, in this case young boys and girls in select districts of West Bengal.

Our experience in the sector and the outcomes of the situation analysis pointed in the same direction, it was clear that a shift was needed in the boys’ perspective. They had to see sex trafficking as a continuum of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and this would not be possible until boys were aware of how gender norms impacted their lives and experiences. Keeping their lived experiences of gender would be critical to facilitate empathy and sensitivity for GBV faced by women and girls.

Key outcomes

The final package helped the project team in building perspective in boys and helping them see the impact of gender based violence and discrimination. It helped the boys in exploring ways in which they could contribute to preventing GBV and discrimination. The package achieved its objective by:

1. Helping boys build an understanding of patriarchal values, gender norms and the impact on their lives

2. Keeping the learning engaging through audio visual aids, exercises, activities and discussions

3. Engaging the boys in discourse and action against gender related discrimination

4. Facilitating community level action

5. Provoking introspection on the role they can play in preventing violence and discrimination around them