Learning Initiative on Norms, Exploitation and Abuse Webinar Series

This series of webinars is being hosted by the LINEA (Learning Initiative on Norms, Exploitation and Abuse) Network, a project of the Gender Violence and Health Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which works to prevent sexual exploitation of children and adolescents using a social norms approach. These regular webinars are hosted by LINEA Network members and are meant to provide a platform for sharing developments in the areas of social norms, structural drivers, and child sexual exploitation and abuse. The LINEA Network is made up of partners in research, programming, policy, advocacy, and funding who work to prevent the sexual exploitation and abuse of young people.

LINEA aims to better understand the interdependence of human behaviour and the power of community-level change, and in doing so goes beyond traditional programmatic strategies that tend to target individuals. Now in Phase II, the LINEA Project combines research with partnership-building to guide the development of programmes to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse before they happen. Uniquely focused on primary prevention of exploitation and abuse outside of the context of organised crime, LINEA has an initial emphasis on the sexual exploitation of adolescent girls in low- and middle-income countries.

The webinars feature experts from around the globe discussing different aspects of social norms and child sexual exploitation and abuse. To find out about future webinars, sign up to the LINEA Network at this link. The webinars to date (December 2017) are as follows (with the most recent at the top):

LINEA Webinar 11: Change Starts at Home: Intervening on Social Norms to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in Nepal (November 2017)
This webinar discusses the media and community outreach intervention ‘Change Starts at Home’, which seeks to address the social norms driving intimate partner violence (IPV) among couples in Nepal. It looks at: preliminary study findings and discussion of their utility; social norms measurement; and iterative, community-informed intervention design.

LINEA Webinar 10: Tostan Measuring Change in Female Genital Cutting Social Norms (November 2017)
For the past 25 years, Tostan has empowered African communities to bring about sustainable development and positive social transformation based on respect for human rights. During the Generational Change in Three Years (GC3Y) project, Tostan’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, and Research Department (MERL) put an emphasis on measuring change in social norms contributing to the harmful practice of female genital cutting. In this webinar, presenters focus on the methodology used and discuss the results obtained to date.

LINEA Webinar 9: A Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism (June 2016)
This webinar shares findings contained in the Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism report, which was launched in May 2016 after two years of research, resulting in a large information bank. Presenters look at the methods for the study and highlight findings on the social factors contributing to the sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism worldwide. They also point out gaps in knowledge and recommendations for future research.

LINEA Webinar 8: Conducting Ethical Research Involving Children (April 2016)
This webinar discusses key ethical considerations when carrying out research involving children, and provides an example of the ethics protocol that was used to conduct a multi-component evaluation of the Good School toolkit, a school-based intervention that seeks to prevent violence against children in schools in Uganda.

LINEA Webinar 7: Truck Drivers and Child Sexual Exploitation on the Roadways of Brazil (January 2016)
“On the Right Track”, an initiative of Childhood Brasil, aims to mobilise governments, companies and third-sector organisations to confront child and adolescent sexual exploitation on Brazilian roadways. As part of this initiative, the “Profile of Truck Drivers in Brazil” study began in 2005 and is repeated every five years. The study seeks to understand the lives of truck drivers in Brazil and their relationship with the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents. This webinar presents findings from the 2015 round of the study and shares how truck drivers’ involvement with children for sexual purposes has been changing.

LINEA Webinar 6: Entrance and Immersion of Young People into Selling Sex in Russia (November 2015)
This webinar highlights findings from Stellit’s research with female sex workers (FSWs) in Russia. Stellit surveyed 896 FSWs in St. Petersburg and Orenburg and conducted 15 in-depth interviews with adult FSWs, speaking with women in different types and stages of sex work. They analysed sex work as a stepwise process, a career, which is shaped at every stage by factors acting at different levels (individual, social networks, societal, etc.). This presentation discusses the role of social norms at the stages of entrance and immersion into the world of selling sex, focusing on women who began doing so before age 18.

LINEA Webinar 5: Men, Women and the Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents in Brazil (October 2015)
This webinar presents findings from qualitative and quantitative research carried out by Promundo Brazil in four Brazilian cities. The study mapped men’s and women’s perceptions of the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, seeking to understand to what extent their attitudes contribute to its perpetuation.

LINEA Webinar 4: Measuring Social Norms (July 2015)
Using case studies from programmes in Nigeria, South Sudan, and Somalia, this webinar discusses how social norms are measured to evaluate programmes designed to increase gender equity and reduce sexual violence.

LINEA Webinar 3: Social Norms: A Pillar of Child Protection (May 2015)
Social norms can contribute to children’s vulnerability to sexual exploitation and a host of other harms, especially when norms lead to discriminatory practices, gender bias, and social acceptance of violations. Beyond raising awareness, changing social norms requires improving understanding through a comprehensive and inclusive approach. Crucially, it also means reinforcing behaviours and practices that protect children - and involving children and youth as actors of social change. This webinar presents findings from an initiative in Madagascar to highlight the key role social norms play in child protection.

LINEA Webinar 2: Attitudes Towards the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children & Youth in Poland (February 2015)
In this webinar, Nobody’s Children Foundation discusses their recently completed study on attitudes and opinions of adults (15 years and older) in Poland on the commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth. This quantitative study was conducted in two waves, 2011 and 2014. The study aimed to: identify respondents’ moral assessment of different kinds of commercial sexual exploitation; assess the scale of the problem in Poland; and assess motives and high-risk groups.

LINEA Webinar 1: Human Trafficking for the Sexual Exploitation of Roma Women (December 2014)
In this webinar, the presenter discusses findings from her doctoral research on human trafficking for sexual exploitation of women belonging to the ethnic Roma minority. Her research spans the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.