Gender-Based Violence in Schools and Girls' Education: Experimental Evidence from Mozambique

Gender-based violence (GBV) at schools is a pervasive problem that affects millions of adolescent girls worldwide, but there is little evidence on how to deter GBV in schools and how this affects girls’ education. We evaluate an intervention aimed to increase the capacity of school personnel to address GBV and to improve students’ awareness and proactive behaviors. We randomized exposure to the intervention as well as whether the student component was targeted to girls, boys, or both. We find a reduction in violence perpetrated by teachers and school staff against girls in all treated schools, regardless of the targeted students’ gender. Using administrative records, we show that in schools where girls were targeted, there was an increase in their school enrollment, largely due to an increased propensity for GBV reporting by victims. Our findings suggest that effectively mitigating violence to improve girls’ schooling requires a dual approach: deterring potential perpetrators and fostering a proactive stance among victims, such as increased reporting.