Christia, Fotini, Larreguy, Horacio, Muhab, Norhan and Parker-Magyar, Elizabeth (2022) Can media campaigns empower women facing gender-based violence amid COVID-19? TSE Working Paper, n. 22-1294, Toulouse.

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Abstract

Women’s exposure to gender-based and intimate partner violence (GBV and IPV) is particularly acute due to COVID-19, especially in the Global South. We test whether edutainment interventions that have been shown to success-fully combat GBV and IPV when delivered in person can be effectively de-livered using social (WhatsApp and Facebook) and traditional (TV) media. To do so, we randomized the mode of implementation of an intervention con-ducted by an Egyptian women’s rights non-governmental organization seeking to support women while accommodating social distancing amid COVID-19. We found WhatsApp to be a more effective way to deliver the intervention than Facebook, but no differences across outcomes between WhatsApp and TV dis-semination. Our findings show that these media campaigns had no impact on women’s attitudes toward gender or marital equality, or the justifiability of vi-olence. However, the campaign did increase women’s knowledge, hypothetical, and reported use of resources available to those exposed to GBV and IPV.