Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how GBV in schools threatens girls' safety. It highlights vulnerabilities in low-resource settings and argues for prioritizing safety and addressing GBV in physical and online spaces as essential to equitable development strategies. ________________________________________

Paper long abstract:

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a significant barrier to girls' education and development, particularly in low-income settings. This paper examines how GBV intersects with unsafe physical and digital environments in Nigerian schools, constraining girls’ potential and reinforcing inequality.

Drawing on workshop activities and interview data with adolescent girls, the study identifies two core vulnerabilities:

Physical Insecurity: Dilapidated school structures, unmonitored entry points, and inadequate supervision expose girls to harassment and abuse, rendering educational spaces unsafe.

Digital Vulnerabilities: The increasing reliance on digital technologies amplifies risks such as cyberbullying, online harassment and exploitation, particularly for girls with limited digital literacy or economic means.

These risks not only jeopardize girls' immediate safety but also hinder long-term development by reducing educational attainment, increasing absenteeism, and undermining self-confidence. This research situates girls' experiences within systemic inequalities that normalize GBV, arguing for safety as a core component of development.

Key contributions include:

Identifying structural and digital conditions exacerbating GBV in schools.

Centering girls' perspectives on navigating these risks.

Proposing actionable solutions like comprehensive sexuality education, digital literacy initiatives, and infrastructure improvements.

This study aligns with the panel’s focus by demonstrating that addressing GBV is essential for transforming women lives and societal outcomes. It emphasize the urgency of creating secure physical and digital spaces where girls and young women can thrive, fostering a more equitable future.

Paper short abstract:

This study provides empirical evidence of how trends in "unbalanced developments" in gender, female empowerment, and economy could be dangerous for women's physical, sexual, and marital well-being in a patriarchal African context, between 2008 and 2018.

Paper long abstract:

Introduction

Nigeria has achieved significant gender development milestones following the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals. However, between 2008 and 2018, husband-to-wife violence (HWV) in Nigerian households has increased. This study examines the complex relationship between gender progress and HWV, highlighting the dangers of backlash dynamics in development.

Methods

Data come from three waves of national surveys (the 2008, 2013, and 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys). Using multiple logistic regressions and logit-based non-linear multivariate decomposition technique (mvdcmp) recommended by Powers and colleagues in 2011, four main factors were examined: recent increases in women's income relative to husbands', trends in husbands' alcohol use, couples’ attitudes toward violence, and household poverty, among others.

Results

The study found a 3%-point (or 45% relative) increase in women's income level and a 4%-point (or 16% relative) increase in women's victimization with HWV, during the study years. Earning more income than husband was a significant risk factor for HWV; time-wise changes in couples' socioeconomic characteristics accounted for 28% of the increases. Although more couples became less likely to justify HWV, recent increases in husbands’ alcohol abuse also contributed about 39%, especially in middle-income households. Together, more husbands became abusive if their women experienced higher income or lacked personal income. In both ways, women were victimized.

Conclusion and Implication

Gender developments can be dangerous to women without requisite anti-backlash strategies. Comprehensive policies are needed to mitigate risks and ensure progress does not exacerbate vulnerabilities. More study implications will be addressed at the conference.

Paper long abstract:

We evaluate the causal impact of average neighbourhood attitudes justifying intimate partner violence (IPV) on one's own attitudes, using nationally representative data from the fifth wave of the National Family Health Survey of India. To address endogeneity concerns in estimating peer influences, we utilize exogenous variation in the average exposure of neighbouring women to their parental IPV in a leave-one-out instrumental variable strategy. We find robust evidence that a 1 SD increase in a woman's average neighbourhood attitudes justifying IPV leads to a 0.36 SD increase in her attitudes justifying the same. We establish the importance of peer influences on a woman's acceptability of IPV as justifiable, especially among less educated, unemployed, having no assets or media exposure and bearing more daughters than sons, making them more impressionable. This underscores the need for enhanced implementation of policies targeting women's empowerment to arrest the perpetration of gender-biased social norms.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how women’s lack of safety limits socio-economic well-being in Nigeria through a capabilities lens, focusing on education and employment. It highlights structural barriers and calls for prioritizing women’s safety to expand their opportunities and achieve development goals.

Paper long abstract:

This study critically examines the extent to which women’s lack of safety limits women’s socio-economic wellbeing in Nigeria from a capabilities perspective. Safety is central to women’s access to systems that ensure physical, emotional, social, and economic wellbeing in fulfilling their potential. This study focuses on two domains of socio-economic wellbeing: education and employment. A significant portion of literature on the Nigerian context has raised the issue of gender-based violence women face in society both in public and private spaces, such as physical violence, sexual harassment, stalking, discrimination, and social exclusion (Othman et al., 2024; Okafor et al., 2023; Ajayi et al., 2021; Oboh et al., 2021; Irabor and Irabor, 2018; Dosunmu and Adeyemo, 2018). These factors contribute towards shaping the real freedoms and opportunities women have to live a safe and empowered life. Using an online survey with women aged 15-45 years old in Nigeria, this study examines women’s perceptions and experiences of lack of safety within five capability dimensions, drawing on Nussbaum’s (2003) list of capabilities. This study, through the capabilities lens, focuses not only on Nigerian women’s lack of safety but emphasizes expanding freedoms for them to fully participate in society. By highlighting structural inequalities, power dynamics, and barriers that enable the persistence of a lack of safety for women in Nigeria, this study contributes to strategies to prioritize women’s safety in achieving broader development goals.

Keywords: Capabilities approach, women’s safety, socioeconomic wellbeing, Nigeria, education, employment

Paper short abstract:

We present a game theoretic set-up to understand understand the strategic behavior of harassers who leverage victim-shaming to select their target. We also show results from a survey which corroborate the findings of the model.

Paper long abstract:

We consider sexual harassment in public places and the strategic targeting of victims. We present a game theoretic set-up where we a potential harasser leverages the fact that victims can be shamed when they ask for external support. Next, via survey experiments we highlight how victims are targeted in real life. First, we elicit the individual gender norms of the respondent regarding behavior that is considered to contrary to the socially acceptable norm for women. We show that individual norm are often at variance from what the individual understands is the accepted social norm. Next, we show that women who break the accepted social norms are perceived to face a very different level of threat in public places. Most importantly, we note that victims who are seen to be defying the norm are also less likely to find support from bystanders.

Paper short abstract:

Our study tries to investigate the causal impact of women’s financial inclusion on IPV using a nonparametric bounds approach. We find that financial inclusion leads to an increase in IPV through three channels: violation of patriarchal gender norms, economic abuse, and female guilt.

Paper long abstract:

We empirically examine the causal impact of married women’s financial inclusion on their exposure to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) using data from the latest round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) India. Establishing a causal link between women’s financial inclusion and IPV, however, is challenging due to unobserved confounders and reverse causality. To overcome these obstacles, we adopt a nonparametric bounds approach. Relying on fairly weak assumptions, we find robust evidence that women’s financial inclusion leads to a significant increase in their exposure to any type of IPV by at least 10 percent. Further, we provide suggestive evidence that this result arises because married women’s financial inclusion is likely to disrupt patriarchal beliefs about gender roles within the household and increase economic abuse and female guilt. Our findings suggest that empowering women financially, while crucial, may inadvertently increase their vulnerability to IPV unless such initiatives are paired with efforts to shift underlying cultural norms surrounding gender and power.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the cultural meaning of Bangladeshi women’s experiences of sexual harassment, highlighting how women's class, age, and religion intersect with their gender identity to shape their unique sexual harassment narratives and inform effective sexual harassment prevention strategies.

Paper long abstract:

Sexual harassment (SH) on public buses in Dhaka remains a significant security concern for the city’s female inhabitants, with statistics revealing that 94% of women commuters experience such harassment (BRAC, 2018). These incidents often turn into violent rapes and gang rapes on public buses. However, the socio-cultural and patriarchal context in Bangladesh tends to trivialize this issue. The colloquial euphemism ‘Eve Teasing’ is used to refer to SH both in academic sources and mainstream media. Neither the legal system nor the police take SH allegations seriously. Studies on gender and public transport in Bangladesh not only provide limited attention to SH on public buses but illustrate the problem of sexual harassment by showing statistics of harassment while failing to analyze the qualitative narratives of women commuters. Therefore, this paper addresses this knowledge gap and documents how women’s class, age and religion interconnect with one another to create women’s understanding of sexual harassment in the specific socio-cultural context in Bangladesh. Using the data from 18 life-story interviews with women in Dhaka, this paper explains how through understanding and repetitive performances of respectable feminine values, norms, and behaviours, Bangladeshi women create a specific cultural interpretation of the causes, perpetration, and victimization of sexual harassment in Bangladesh. I explored that Women’s class status, religious affiliation and age intersect not only to influence the extent to which women accept, challenge, and negotiate with respectability but to determine how they explain SH, apportion blame for it and protest during SH incidents

Paper short abstract:

I propose that women's exclusion from critical household decision is a form of women's insecurity. This study uses social survey data from Pakistan to explore the factors influencing bargaining power of Pakistani women in intrahousehold decision-making and determines their participation.

Paper long abstract:

This study uses social survey data from Pakistan (Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017-18) to explore the factors influencing bargaining power of Pakistani women in intrahousehold decision-making and determines their participation in these decisions. Extending from Naila Kabeer’s resources, agency, and achievements framework, this study uses decision-making agency as a proxy for a woman’s relative position and status within the family and household. Exclusion from household decisions undermines women’s well-being and self-esteem, and therefore, I argue is a form of women’s insecurity.

Results from logistic regression analysis show that relative bargaining power of women, indicated by their relative age (with regards to their husbands’), relative earnings, and relative education, impacts the complex dynamics of intrahousehold decision making as well. Additionally, years since cohabitation, being married to the household head, and owning property increases the women’s intrahousehold decision making agency whereas a greater number of children and being married to a blood relative decreases it.

It is critical to engage with negotiations of agency and autonomy as experienced by contemporary Pakistani women. This research is an important contribution to the inquiry into gender inequalities in the South Asia, because it studies women in Pakistan as they navigate structural inequalities within homes, despite getting education and entering the labour force in larger numbers than ever before. This study highlights the significance of measures of women’s agency and empowerment, distinct from the ones that are widely accepted in the Global North, that incorporate sociocultural context of households in the Global South.