Religious Leaders Can Motivate Men to Cede Power and Reduce Intimate Partner Violence: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

"[I]ntimate partner violence can be reduced by those with moral authority in their communities."

Patriarchal norms are often to blame for violence committed by men against women in intimate relationships. Previous research suggests that norm perception is strongly influenced by signals from influential community members - and that reaching out to those trusted people can be an effective channel for behaviour change. In many settings, a compelling authority on behaviour in relationships is religious leaders; one way these leaders exert their influence is through premarital or couples counseling courses. This study tests whether, if given an opportunity to offer a more progressive religious interpretation of gender roles during these courses, religious leaders in Uganda could motivate men to share power with women and thereby reduce violence.

Developed by the International Rescue Committee's (IRC) Airbel Impact Laboratory, the intervention tested in this study, Becoming One (B1), draws insights from a dynamic human-centred design process. B1 works within existing church programming models and aligns with the priority placed on heterosexual relationships and marriage by leaders and their congregants. The B1 curriculum intentionally does not address violence directly, focusing instead on improving couples' relationships in ways that benefit both women and men. The content of the curriculum uses the language, symbols, and authority of the church to identify its recommendations for new behaviours and norms as a Christian. For example, it (i) provides alternative interpretations of scriptural passages often thought to justify male dominance, (ii) creates a new aspirational identity for heterosexual Christian couples that is based in equality and trains them in the requisite skills to achieve greater power sharing, and (iii) provides opportunities for the religious leader to model and socially reinforce new behaviours and norms in front of a group of Christian couples (classes are held, as is traditional for marital counseling in many contexts, for groups of several couples at once).

Specifically, B1 teaches relationship skills: communication, emotional regulation, shared control over financial resources, financial planning, and sexual consent and pleasure. Religious leaders were trained for 2 days and given an instructional guide for themselves and their couples, as well as smartphones with video lessons to prepare for each session. They were also signed up for a WhatsApp group with other participating religious leaders in their district. Sessions are intended to be delivered by religious leaders to groups of 4-7 couples for 12 weekly 90-minute sessions. The sessions are meant to be participatory, and each couple is also given a guidebook with additional home practice activities. The guide book and other materials showcase aspirational couple identities through vivid illustrations of Ugandan couples. Lessons are justified and reinforced through Christian teachings, including reinterpretations of biblical passages commonly cited as justifications for women's subservience to men.

Building on existing faith networks of Christian religious leaders in western Uganda, the researchers conducted a large pair-matched, randomised controlled trial (RCT) among 1,680 heterosexual couples in which participants were randomised to attend the 12-session B1 course or were wait-listed. The researchers measured both the treatment and control couples' outcomes in 2 follow-up surveys conducted in April 2019 and November 2019, roughly 6 and 12 months after the counseling sessions had started for the treatment couples. In addition, the researchers conducted qualitative focus groups and individual interviews. The 4 primary outcomes were: violence, the balance of power and decision-making, communication, and sexual consent and autonomy.

The researchers found a reduction in intimate partner violence. The estimated 5 percentage point reduction at the second follow-up implies that among the 840 couples randomised to treatment, the programme prevented male violence against women in approximately 42 couples. The study also identified an increase in the equality of power relations between partners and an increase in communication and conflict resolution. All effects were signed in the hypothesised direction, were of moderate size relative to control means (3-13% changes) and standard deviations (SDs) (0.03 to 0.20 SD effects), and were statistically significant at the preregistered α=0.10 level, with the exception of the results on violence at 6 months and consent at 12 months.

In secondary analyses, the researchers found that for women in relationships where violence persisted, modest improvements may have occurred. The programme reduced the frequency of emotional, physical, and sexual violence as well as the severity and the proportion of possible acts experienced by women. There were also reductions in the number of women reporting hitting their partner and reductions in reported disciplinary violence against children, suggesting positive spillover effects of reduced conflict for all household members.

The results are broadly consistent with the programme's goal to shift power dynamics within the couple: At 12 months, there were improvements in women's control and decision-making, as well as nonsignificant changes in sexual consent and autonomy. The apparent increase in women's control and decision-making was found to be driven principally by increased involvement of women in decision-making around their partner's finances. Consistent with this idea, couples who were assigned to the programme were statistically significantly more likely to report, in separate interviews, that they have engaged in joint financial planning and that they engage in less income hiding.

In general, women in the treatment group appear to have experienced their participation in the programme as a gain in both control and decision-making power, while men report experiencing a loss in control and decision-making power. The researchers suggest that men's shift toward willingness to knowingly cede control to their female partners is related to the increased value partners place on their relationship as a result of improvements in couple dynamics that benefit both partners. B1 couples report a greater degree of trust and intimacy than those in the control group, which is driven by a convergence in men's and women's assessments of the quality of their relationship. In secondary analyses, the researchers found that B1 reduced reported within-couple differences in emotional closeness as well as differences in reported trust. The study also revealed an improvement in conflict resolution strategies.

The researchers found evidence for heterogeneity in effects across religious leaders for all 4 primary outcomes (P<0.001 for all). That is, improvements were largest among couples counseled by religious leaders who held the most progressive views at baseline and who critically engaged with B1 material.

In a dedicated section of the article, the researchers consider limitations and alternative explanations for the data. However, discussing each possibility in turn, they do not find evidence that the effects are driven by experimenter demand or by a range of alternative explanations put forth in the literature, including peer effects and attitudinal change.

Most important to the potential for scale of B1 is the popularity of marital counseling programmes in Ugandan society; in some denominations, such programmes are considered mandatory if congregants wish to be married in the church. Thus, scaling this relatively short-duration, low-cost programme is primarily a matter of asking religious leaders to adopt it and integrating it as part of church curriculum. However, as the findings on heterogeneity of religious leaders' efficacy show, not all religious leaders are ready to realise the full degree of success of this programme. Future research could consider whether trainings or other strategies (e.g., mobilising religious leaders to talk with one another about the importance of the curriculum's goals) or screening for particular characteristics might increase programme impact.

In short, this RCT suggests that religious leaders can be effective agents of change for reducing violence.