Safe Spaces and Internal Displaced Women’s and Girls' Wellbeing

Several interventions have been made by the studies related to the issues of GBV and conflicts in Burkina Faso. Experimental evidence compares the effects of mass media and messages on contraception through a two-level RCT (Glennerster et al., 2022). Béné et al. (2024) analyzed the resilience and collapse of local food systems in conflict-affected areas. Musizvingoza et al (2022) identify risk factors of adolescent exposure to violence. Karimli et al. (2021) found that economic empowerment intervention increased women’s involvement in making decisions about their children’s well-being, but had no effect on women’s say in making decisions about general household economy. They also found most effects to be stronger in the treatment arm that received economic strengthening combined with family coaching offered to the whole household and directly targeting normative beliefs related to child wellbeing and gender norms. Our research proposal will contribute to the resolution of the GBV issues in the context of conflicts in Burkina Faso by providing a package of two interventions composed of:

1- The creation of safe spaces or listening and counseling centers that will provide the internally displaced women and girls the possibility to participate in GBV response:

•  recreational activities (e.g., sewing, make-up, hairdressing, painting, drawing, and theater performances) led by women and girls in the community, with resources procured by the centers.
• information and awareness-raising sessions which topics can include information on available services and how to access them; risk identification and reduction strategies; sexual and reproductive health; women’s rights; infant and young child feeding practices; positive coping strategies; life skills; water and sanitation or nutrition; and hygiene promotion.
•  prevention activities in terms of safety mapping (an activity to support women and girls in identifying high-risk locations throughout their communities, and working together to minimize those risks) and safety groups (such as water collection group or school accompaniment group) which can empower communities to ensure a safer environment for women and girls.

2- The combination of the safe spaces' GBV response services treatment with a treatment on the home visits (through the volunteer outreach team) and home-based tea/coffee sessions to inform community members about activities and services.