Training Leaders to Prevent and Reduce Domestic Violence in Their Communities: Experimental Evidence From Peru

Leaders in Action (LIA) is a norms-centered intervention run by the Peruvian Ministry for Women and Vulnerable Populations (MIMP) that aims to reduce the acceptance and incidence of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in Peru by shifting social norms. LIA has two main implementation phases: first, the recruitment of Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) and second, the delivery of content against IPV. The delivery of the intervention is assisted by MIMP professionals working in local "Women Emergency Centers" (Centro de Emergencia Mujer, or CEM), a nationwide network of hubs run by the MIMP that offer wide-ranging support services to IPV victims. The CEMs also implement other IPV prevention interventions at the local level.

CEM's Promotors (MIMP's professionals working at local CEM) recruit leaders of local social organizations and train them to be Facilitators of LIA. Facilitators are the principal CHVs located in each district center who conduct LIA activities. Another type of CHVs are leaders at the village-level who are trained by Facilitators to become Community Agents (CAs). Both CAs and Facilitators work together to conduct the second phase of LIA: the delivery of the intervention through its two delivery models, the Household Treatment (HT) and the Group Treatment (GT).

Originally, the study was designed to only evaluate the HT. Thus, a first randomization was conducted on our study sample with an even split of 125 control villages and 125 treatment villages. The research team and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Peru deployed a census to identify the population of women in sample villages who met the eligibility criteria for the study, and conducted an in-depth baseline survey on women who reported IPV in the census. The implementation of the HT began in 2020, and was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The MIMP paused the program in March 2020 until national lockdowns were rescinded in February 2022. Given the intense migration and other demographic changes that took place during the 23-month interruption, as well as the potential for new IPV exposure over that period, new census and baseline surveys were conducted in 2022, which were used to define the final targeted sample for the intervention.

Our study tests two different delivery modes of the program, the HT and the GT, as well as their combination, in a cross-randomized design. The 250 villages in our study sample were randomized into 4 treatment arms following a factorial randomization model. This resulted in 62 villages receiving only the HT (HT only), 62 villages receiving only the GT (GT only), 63 villages receiving both the HT and GT (HT+GT), and 63 villages in the control group. The randomization procedure was stratified by CEM, the level of IPV risk, and the 2018 treatment status (villages that had begun implementation of the HT were restricted to remain in the HT only or HT+GT treatment arms).

The MIMP's original HT design followed a door-to-door delivery approach: CHVs, in coordination with the local CEM, offered 8 treatment sessions to households at risk of IPV. These HT sessions took place over a period of 1 to 2 months and were conducted in participants' residences. While all adult household members were invited to participate, the recipients of the HT were, in practice, primarily women. As a result, this delivery mode may have been ineffective at influencing norms and beliefs of male participants. The household-centered approach is also expensive and difficult to scale up. Thus, together with the MIMP, the research team developed modifications to the HT which resulted in the innovations described below.