A Media Experiment to Reduce Intimate Partner Violence in Bangladesh

Although intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive problem affecting one in three women worldwide, its drivers are complex and not well understood. Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of IPV in the world. Exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, IPV has increased in frequency and prevalence. However, few interventions have been shown to meaningfully improve the social norms or behaviors of male abusers.

To reduce abusive behavior perpetrated by men, the implementing partner will design a six-episode edutainment drama series focused on resilience based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to improve anger management and nonviolent coping skills.

The implementing partner will refine the content, work with a production company to produce the series, and conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test the effectiveness of each set of episodes in public and private settings.

The trial will measure the impact of the interventions on beliefs about IPV, nonviolent coping skills, rates of victimization, and the cost-effectiveness of this low-cost edutainment approach compared to in-person group therapy.

This studypossibly the first study of a CBT-based edutainment interventionis expected to reveal key drivers of IPV, identify potential solutions that are relatively inexpensive to scale, and to inform future development programs and policies globally.