Transforming Harmful Cultural Norms That Drive Gender-Based Violence
CRH PROJECT PAGE | FORD FOUNDATION-SUPPORTED INITIATIVE
Changing Harmful Norms. Strengthening Communities. Protecting Dignity.
Gender-based violence does not happen in isolation. It is often sustained by beliefs, traditions, unequal power relations and community expectations that discourage women and girls from speaking out or exercising their rights.
Through this initiative, the Centre for the Right to Health (CRH), with support from the Ford Foundation, is working with traditional rulers, cultural gatekeepers, women, youth and community institutions in Imo State, Nigeria, to challenge harmful practices and strengthen community-led prevention of gender-based violence against women and girls, including women with disabilities.
The project recognises that lasting change requires more than awareness. It requires communities to question harmful norms, redefine acceptable behaviour and establish mechanisms that sustain positive change.
Project at a glance
Implementing organisation
Centre for the Right to Health (CRH)
Geographical focus
Imo State, Nigeria
Primary participants
Traditional leaders, women, youth and cultural gatekeepers
Funding partner
Ford Foundation
Project focus
GBV prevention and cultural norms transformation
Implementation approach
Community-led, rights-based and disability-inclusive
The challenge: When harmful practices become accepted norms
Across communities, certain customary practices and social expectations can reinforce discrimination, silence survivors and perpetuate gender-based violence. These may include the normalisation of domestic violence, forced or early marriage, harmful widowhood practices, unequal inheritance rights and the exclusion of women and girls with disabilities from community decision-making.
Such practices can persist when they are defended as tradition, rarely questioned by influential leaders or reinforced through social pressure.
CRH's approach acknowledges the importance of cultural identity while creating opportunities for communities to examine practices that undermine dignity, equality and human rights.
The goal is not to reject culture, but to support communities in preserving what protects human dignity and transforming what causes harm.
Our approach: From awareness to community-owned change
01. Engaging traditional and cultural leaders
Working with traditional rulers, palace cabinet members and other influential community actors to examine the beliefs and practices that enable violence and discrimination.
02. Leadership norm-shift retreats
Facilitated learning sessions that encourage participants to question harmful assumptions, reinterpret cultural expectations through a human-rights lens and identify practical commitments for change.
03. Developing community and palace charters
Supporting communities to formulate and publicly adopt commitments that reject harmful practices, affirm the rights of women and girls, and promote accountability within local institutions.
04. Strengthening community-led committees
Supporting representative committees comprising traditional leaders, women, youth and other community stakeholders to advance commitments, mobilise residents and monitor agreed reforms.
05. Documenting meaningful change
Using participatory monitoring and the Most Significant Change (MSC) approach to understand how attitudes, decisions, leadership practices and community expectations evolve over time.
