Gender-based violence prevention: Master MUN Strategies for Strong Resolutions

Do not index

Preventing gender-based violence isn't just another policy goal—it's a human rights imperative. Real prevention means going beyond simply reacting to violence. It requires us to get to the root of the problem and dismantle the systems that allow it to flourish: inequality, harmful social norms, and deep-seated discrimination. The ultimate aim is a world where everyone can live without fear.

Understanding The Scope Of Gender-Based Violence

Before you can write a compelling resolution or argue for policy change, you first have to absorb the sheer scale of this crisis. Gender-based violence (GBV) isn't some abstract issue happening somewhere else; it's a global emergency that devastates lives, shatters families, and holds entire communities back. It’s a spectrum of harm that includes physical, sexual, psychological, and economic abuse, all fueled by inequality.

Knowing the "why" behind the numbers is what allows you to convey the true urgency of the problem. This foundation gives you the power to build a convincing case for immediate international action, linking the issue directly to the core mandates of the United Nations. If you're involved in diplomatic simulations, our guides on Model United Nations can help you frame these arguments effectively.

A Shadow Pandemic

The statistics on GBV are nothing short of staggering. They paint a grim picture of a shadow pandemic that has silently raged for centuries.

The numbers are difficult to comprehend. Imagine that nearly one in every three women you know has experienced violence from a partner or through sexual assault. That's the devastating reality for an estimated 840 million women who have faced intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence since the age of 15. The World Health Organization's November 2025 report details the lifetime toll of this crisis.

These aren't just figures on a page. Each number represents a human story of pain and resilience, highlighting a systemic failure woven into the fabric of societies that perpetuate gender inequality.

To put the crisis in perspective, let's look at some key global figures.

Key Statistics on Global Gender-Based Violence

This table summarizes the staggering global and regional statistics on various forms of gender-based violence to provide a quick, impactful overview.

Statistic	Figure	Context
Lifetime Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence	1 in 3 women worldwide	Nearly a third of all women who have been in a relationship report having experienced violence by their partner.
Women and Girls in Human Trafficking	71% of all victims	The majority of trafficking victims are female, with sexual exploitation being the most common form of abuse.
Child Marriage	650 million living today	These girls are often forced to drop out of school and face higher risks of domestic violence and health issues.
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)	200 million survivors	Practiced in 30 countries across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, FGM is a severe violation of human rights.
Femicide (Gender-Related Killings)	87,000 women in 2017 alone	More than half were killed by intimate partners or family members, making home the most dangerous place for a woman.

These statistics underscore the global nature of GBV and the urgent need for comprehensive gender-based violence prevention strategies that can be adapted to different cultural and regional contexts.

The Spectrum Of Harm

GBV isn't one single act; it's a spectrum of interconnected behaviors, each causing profound and lasting damage. Understanding these different forms is crucial for developing prevention strategies that are truly holistic.

Physical Violence: This is any act of force that causes pain or injury. It includes everything from hitting and slapping to choking and burning.

Sexual Violence: This covers any sexual act or attempt to obtain one through coercion. It ranges from rape and sexual assault to harassment and unwanted sexual comments.

Psychological Violence: This insidious form of abuse includes emotional torment, intimidation, and humiliation. Threats and insults erode a person's self-worth and mental health.

Economic Violence: This involves controlling a person's access to money and resources. By creating financial dependency, an abuser limits their partner's autonomy and ability to leave.

When we talk about the impact of GBV, it's vital to recognize the deep psychological wounds it leaves behind. Survivors often need specialized support, such as EMDR therapy for processing trauma, to heal. Acknowledging these harms helps advocates champion policies that provide comprehensive support, addressing both immediate safety and long-term recovery.

Unearthing the Roots of GBV

If we're serious about creating effective gender-based violence prevention strategies, we have to look past the surface-level symptoms and get to the root of the problem. Think of GBV less as a series of random, isolated acts and more as the predictable outcome of a system built on imbalance. It's a problem that thrives where inequality is woven right into the social fabric.

These drivers are complex and tangled, like the root system of a massive, ancient tree. You can't just trim the branches and expect the tree to die; you have to go underground and tackle the system that nourishes it. These root causes are the critical leverage points where real, lasting change can finally begin.

The Foundation of Inequality

At its absolute core, gender-based violence is an expression of a power imbalance. It’s born from deeply embedded, often unconscious beliefs that one gender is inherently superior, creating a dynamic where control and dominance become normalized.

This isn't just a matter of a few bad attitudes. It's about structural inequality—the way our societies are organized to give more power, resources, and opportunities to men while systemically limiting them for women and gender minorities. These structures can be hard to see, but their influence is immense, shaping everything from our laws and economic policies to the way families function behind closed doors.

Harmful social and cultural norms are the glue holding these unequal structures in place. They dictate how men and women are "supposed" to act, often promoting toxic masculinity, encouraging female submissiveness, and enforcing rigid gender roles that can justify violence as an acceptable means of control.

Key Drivers Fueling the Cycle

A number of interconnected factors create the perfect breeding ground for GBV. Understanding how they work together is crucial for building a prevention framework that actually works.

Economic Disempowerment: When women can't achieve financial independence, their vulnerability to violence skyrockets. A lack of access to education, decent jobs, or property rights can effectively trap them in abusive relationships because they simply don't have the means to escape. Poverty makes everything worse, adding a layer of stress that can easily escalate tensions into violence.

Harmful Cultural and Social Norms: Traditions that uphold male authority or place a higher value on family "honor" than a woman's safety create enormous pressure. These norms often excuse or even condone violence, silencing survivors who rightfully fear being shamed, blamed, or cast out by their communities.

Weak Legal and Justice Systems: When laws don't adequately protect women—or when they exist on paper but aren't enforced—perpetrators learn they can act without consequences. A justice system that isn't survivor-centered, where police and judges aren't trained to handle these sensitive cases, only discourages reporting and lets the cycle of violence spin on.

Educational Disparities: Denying girls an education does more than just limit their future job prospects; it reinforces their lower status in society. Education is one of the most powerful tools for empowerment, giving girls the knowledge and confidence they need to understand and claim their rights.

One of the most brutal examples of harmful cultural practices is female genital mutilation (FGM). Disturbingly, this specific form of GBV is on the rise. UN Women reports that as of 2025, over 230 million girls and women worldwide are affected—a shocking 15% increase since 2013. You can discover more insights about these gender-based violence facts and the urgent need for action.

By pinpointing these drivers, you can start crafting policies that are far more targeted and effective. It's clear that tackling these root causes demands a multi-pronged approach that challenges norms, boosts women's economic power, and fortifies legal protections. As you research for your resolutions, remember that knowing how to evaluate sources is essential for building your arguments on a foundation of solid evidence.

Using International Law To Your Advantage

In any Model UN committee, the sharpest delegates know that strong arguments aren't just based on opinion—they’re anchored in established international law. Think of these legal frameworks as your diplomatic toolkit. They're the instruments that give your proposals weight, urgency, and a sense of undeniable authority.

Citing these agreements does more than just show you've done your homework. It strategically weaves your proposed solutions for gender-based violence prevention into the fabric of global consensus. This simple step transforms your position from a mere suggestion into a powerful call for the world to uphold its own promises.

The Bedrock Conventions And Platforms

When tackling GBV, two landmark agreements form the very foundation of the global fight for gender equality. These aren’t just dusty historical documents; they are active, living principles that member states have sworn to uphold.

First, you have the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Adopted way back in 1979, CEDAW is essentially the international bill of rights for women. It clearly defines what discrimination looks like and lays out a national agenda to stop it. When you cite CEDAW, you’re not just quoting a document—you're reminding the 189 states that ratified it that ending GBV is a legal obligation, not an option.

Then there's the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Forged at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, this framework identified 12 critical areas of concern, with "violence against women" right at the forefront. It’s a strategic blueprint packed with concrete actions for governments and civil society. Using its language in your speeches adds a layer of historical and political gravity to your arguments that's hard to ignore.

Aligning With The Sustainable Development Goals

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development gives you another incredibly powerful tool. Specifically, look to Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5), which aims to "achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls." This isn't just a lofty aspiration; it’s a core mission of the entire global development agenda.

SDG 5 gets very specific with targets that directly address GBV, including:

Target 5.1: End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.

Target 5.2: Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.

Target 5.3: Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.

Framing your proposals as necessary steps to achieve SDG 5 connects your committee’s work to a much bigger, universally accepted mission. When drafting your arguments, referencing these specific targets can make your stance much more compelling. For more on this, check out our comprehensive guide on how to write a Model United Nations position paper.

The RESPECT Framework: A Practical Model

While legal agreements provide the "why," evidence-based models give you the "how." The World Health Organization (WHO) created the RESPECT framework as a practical, hands-on guide for preventing violence against women. It's the perfect tool for structuring the operative clauses in your draft resolution.

Each letter in the name stands for a clear, actionable strategy:

Relationship skills strengthening

Empowerment of women

Services ensured

Poverty reduced

Environments made safe

Child and adolescent abuse prevented

Transformed attitudes, beliefs, and norms

By building these seven strategies into your resolution, you show a sophisticated, holistic understanding of gender-based violence prevention. You're moving beyond simply condemning the problem and are instead proposing a clear, well-researched plan. It’s a practical approach that will make your ideas more persuasive and far more likely to win support.

Crafting Evidence-Based Prevention Strategies

To get serious about preventing gender-based violence, we need to move beyond theory and get our hands dirty with direct, practical action. The most effective blueprints for this work actually come from public health, which uses a multi-layered approach to tackle a problem from every angle. It’s not just about reacting to violence after the fact; it’s about systematically dismantling the very conditions that allow it to fester in the first place.

This strategy breaks down into three distinct, yet deeply connected, tiers: primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. Each level has its own job to do, but they all work in concert to create a comprehensive safety net that protects individuals and, by extension, strengthens entire communities. Grasping how these tiers function is essential for drafting resolutions that can actually make a difference in the real world. For a deeper look at how public health frameworks are applied to global crises, check out our guide on infectious diseases response strategies.

This is where international agreements come into play. They create the scaffolding for our on-the-ground efforts.

As you can see, foundational conventions like CEDAW provide the legal and moral authority. These then inspire broader goals like SDG 5, which are ultimately translated into actionable, evidence-based strategies through frameworks like RESPECT.

The Three Tiers of GBV Prevention

To truly understand how these strategies work together, it helps to see them side-by-side. Each tier targets a different stage of the problem, from stopping violence before it starts to helping survivors heal and preventing recurrence.

Prevention Tier	Objective	Example Strategies
Primary	Stop violence from ever happening.	- School programs on consent and healthy relationships. - Public awareness campaigns challenging harmful stereotypes. - Community workshops engaging men and boys as allies.
Secondary	Intervene at the earliest sign of risk.	- Training for doctors and teachers to spot signs of abuse. - Hotlines and safe spaces for those at high risk. - Early intervention programs for at-risk youth.
Tertiary	Support survivors and prevent re-victimization.	- Accessible shelters, legal aid, and counseling for survivors. - Laws that hold perpetrators accountable. - Economic empowerment programs for survivors.

This tiered approach ensures that no one falls through the cracks. It's a holistic model that addresses root causes, provides immediate help, and supports long-term recovery.

Primary Prevention: Stopping Violence Before It Starts

The ultimate win in any prevention effort is to stop violence before it even has a chance to begin. That’s the entire mission of primary prevention. It gets right to the root of the problem by tackling the harmful gender norms, discriminatory attitudes, and deep-seated inequalities that create a culture where violence is overlooked or, worse, normalized.

Think of it like building a flood barrier to protect a town. You don’t wait for the water to rise and then scramble to rescue people; you build a strong defense long before the storm hits. In the context of GBV, this means:

Educational Programs: Rolling out comprehensive sexuality education in schools that teaches consent, gender equality, and what respectful relationships actually look like.

Community Campaigns: Launching public awareness initiatives that actively challenge toxic masculinity and promote positive, healthy social norms.

Engaging Men and Boys: Creating programs that don’t just lecture men but actively involve them as partners and champions for gender equality and non-violence.

Secondary Prevention: Intervening at the Earliest Signs

Secondary prevention kicks in when the risk of violence is high or when the first signs of abuse start to surface. The goal here is immediate intervention—to identify and support individuals who are at high risk of either experiencing or perpetrating violence. This tier is our early warning system.

For secondary prevention to work, you need trained professionals on the front lines who can recognize the often-subtle red flags of abuse and know exactly how to respond safely and effectively.

Key strategies here include training healthcare workers, police officers, and teachers to screen for signs of domestic violence and provide immediate, confidential referrals to support services. It also means creating safe spaces, like youth centers, where at-risk adolescents can find mentorship and positive role models.

Tertiary Prevention: Supporting Survivors and Ensuring Justice

Finally, tertiary prevention deals with the aftermath of violence. Its mission is two-fold: provide comprehensive, long-term support to help survivors heal and rebuild their lives, and ensure that perpetrators are held accountable for their actions. This stage is all about mitigating the lasting damage of violence and breaking the cycle for good.

This level of intervention requires a robust system of support, including:

Accessible Services: Making sure survivors have immediate access to justice, safe shelters, medical care, and crucial psychosocial support.

Legal Reforms: Strengthening laws to protect survivors, streamline the justice process, and ensure perpetrators face real consequences.

Economic Empowerment: Providing job training and financial assistance that give survivors the tools they need to achieve independence.

Unfortunately, the funding for these life-saving programs is tragically low. In 2022, a mere 0.2% of global development aid went toward violence prevention—a figure that has shockingly declined even as global crises grow. For delegates focusing on SDG 5.2, frameworks like the WHO's RESPECT initiative offer a clear roadmap, emphasizing everything from relationship skills and women's empowerment to creating safe environments. You can explore the full scope of the funding crisis and the RESPECT framework in more detail.

Putting Your Knowledge into Action in Committee

It’s one thing to understand the theories behind gender-based violence prevention. It’s another thing entirely to turn that knowledge into concrete action that wins awards in a Model UN committee. This section is your playbook for doing just that—translating complex international frameworks into the kind of compelling speeches, sharp talking points, and solid resolution clauses that get noticed.

Success in MUN isn't just about knowing the problem. It's about proposing clear, actionable solutions that other delegates can actually get behind. We’ll break down exactly how to weave statistics, legal precedents, and real-world examples into your performance to become a leader in the room.

Crafting High-Impact Resolution Clauses

Think of your draft resolution as the final product of all your hard work. Every single clause needs to be a specific, measurable, and realistic proposal that tackles a root cause of GBV or bolsters a prevention strategy. Vague statements get you nowhere; specificity is your greatest weapon.

Here are a few sample clauses, organized by prevention level, that you can adapt for your own use:

Primary Prevention (Education and Norms)

Urges Member States to integrate comprehensive, age-appropriate education on consent, gender equality, and healthy relationships into national school curricula from primary to secondary levels, allocating a minimum of 1% of national education budgets to these programs.

Calls upon UN Women and UNESCO to collaborate on and fund public awareness campaigns that challenge harmful stereotypes and toxic masculinity, utilizing both traditional media and digital platforms to reach diverse audiences.

Secondary Prevention (Early Intervention)

Recommends the establishment of national training programs, with technical support from the WHO, for healthcare providers, law enforcement, and educators to identify early warning signs of GBV and provide survivor-centered, confidential referrals to support services.

Tertiary Prevention (Survivor Support)

Strongly encourages governments to expand access to justice for survivors by creating specialized courts for GBV cases and providing free legal aid, ensuring that judicial processes are non-discriminatory and trauma-informed.

Requests the allocation of national funding for a network of accessible shelters and psychosocial support services for survivors, ensuring their long-term recovery and economic empowerment through vocational training programs.

Getting your clauses right is fundamental. For a much deeper dive, our complete guide on how to write resolutions gives you step-by-step instructions.

Weaving Evidence into Compelling Talking Points

Your speeches are where you breathe life into your resolution. Don’t just rattle off a list of facts. You need to build a narrative that connects the data to real human impact and shows how your policy ideas will create tangible change. That’s how you persuade people to join you.

Here are a few key talking points and how to frame them:

Frame the Problem with Urgency:

"Distinguished delegates, this is not some distant problem. With nearly 1 in 3 women globally experiencing violence in their lifetime, this is a shadow pandemic happening right now, in every nation represented in this room. Our inaction today will echo for generations."

Invoke Legal Obligations:

"By ratifying CEDAW, the vast majority of our nations have already committed to eliminating discrimination against women. Our resolution isn’t asking for something new; it simply provides the practical roadmap to fulfill a legal and moral obligation we have already accepted."

Propose Evidence-Based Solutions:

"Simply condemning this violence is not enough. We have to adopt strategies that we know work. That is why our resolution is built on the WHO’s RESPECT framework—a seven-point action plan that addresses everything from poverty reduction to transforming harmful social norms."

Citing a Real-World Success Story

Nothing adds credibility to your proposals like a real-world case study. It shows your fellow delegates that your ideas aren't just theoretical—they've been tested and proven to work.

Case Study Spotlight: Uganda's SASA! Initiative

The SASA! program in Uganda is a globally recognized model for preventing violence before it starts. It’s a community-led approach focused on shifting the social norms and power imbalances that allow violence against women to happen.

What it is: SASA! (which means "Now!" in Kiswahili) gets entire communities involved—from elders and local leaders to men and women—in honest conversations about power, violence, and gender.

The Impact: The results speak for themselves. A rigorous evaluation found that in communities with the SASA! program, the rate of physical intimate partner violence was 52% lower than in other communities.

How to Use It: "Delegates, I ask you to look to the SASA! initiative in Uganda. It reduced intimate partner violence by over 50%, not with expensive technology, but by changing community conversations. This proves that investing in norm-changing, community-led gender-based violence prevention is one of the most powerful and cost-effective strategies we can support."

The Critical Role of Data in Fighting GBV

Effective gender-based violence prevention simply cannot happen in the dark. If we don’t have solid, reliable data, our policy decisions are just educated guesses. Resources end up in the wrong places, and the true scale of the crisis stays hidden from view. Good data is the foundation of accountability—it shows us what’s working, where help is needed most, and gives us the evidence to demand funding and political action.

But collecting this information is unbelievably difficult. GBV is one of the most chronically underreported human rights abuses on the planet. Survivors often stay silent out of intense fear, stigma, and the very real danger of retaliation from abusers or their own communities. This silence creates what experts call a "dark figure" of crime, a massive gap between the violence that happens and the violence that gets reported.

Championing Survivor-Centered Data Collection

To start closing that gap, we have to put survivor-centered and ethical data collection at the heart of everything we do. This means the safety, confidentiality, and well-being of the survivor come first, always. It’s about creating safe, trusted ways for people to share their stories and making sure the entire process is designed to avoid causing more trauma.

The core principles of this approach are non-negotiable:

Informed Consent: Survivors must have total control over their own stories and decide how their information is used.

Confidentiality: Protecting a survivor's identity is paramount to preventing retaliation and public shaming.

Safety First: The act of collecting data must never place a survivor in greater danger.

Following this ethical framework is the only way to ensure our search for knowledge doesn't inflict more harm on the very people we aim to help.

Measuring What Matters

To truly gauge our progress, we need standardized indicators that can track both the prevalence of violence and whether our prevention programs are actually making a difference. Key metrics might include changes in incidence rates, shifts in public attitudes about gender roles, and whether survivors can access justice and support services.

One of the most tragic and telling indicators is femicide—the intentional killing of women and girls because of their gender. It represents the ultimate failure of prevention. International bodies are pushing hard to standardize how this horrific crime is tracked. For example, the UNODC-UN Women Global Meeting in Vienna from July 15-17, 2025, brought experts together for this very reason: to refine the frameworks for measuring femicide and improve global data collection.

You can learn more about these global efforts to track femicide and prevent gender-based violence. By advocating for these kinds of robust data mechanisms in resolutions, you can help ensure our collective fight against GBV is guided by evidence, not just assumptions.

Answering the Tough Questions in Committee

When you're in the thick of a debate on gender-based violence prevention, you're bound to run into some recurring arguments and tricky questions. Think of this section as your cheat sheet for navigating those moments, giving you solid, evidence-based responses to keep the discussion moving forward.

These aren't just answers; they're the core of powerful talking points that can strengthen your entire position in committee.

"How Can a Country with Limited Resources Actually Implement These Programs?"

This is a classic—and fair—question. Delegates will often argue that their nation lacks the budget for comprehensive GBV prevention. Your response should pivot from big spending to smart, strategic action. You don't need a massive budget to make a real impact.

Here's how to frame it:

Work with what you have. Integrate education on consent and healthy relationships directly into existing school curricula. It’s about modifying current systems, not building entirely new ones.

Empower local leaders. Train community health workers, religious figures, and local elders to be the first line of response and advocacy. These are trusted voices that can champion change from within.

Focus on political will, not just budget lines. Reforming laws to protect survivors and hold perpetrators accountable is a powerful move that costs far less than a nationwide program.

And don't forget the power of partnership. Proposing collaborations with local NGOs or tapping into international aid specifically earmarked for SDG 5 shows you're thinking creatively and realistically.

"What's the Role of Men and Boys in All This?"

This is a crucial point, and your answer should be clear: men and boys are not just part of the problem; they are an essential part of the solution. Their role is to become active allies in dismantling the very norms that fuel violence.

This isn't about pointing fingers. It's about shared responsibility. Men and boys can:

Call out toxic behavior among their friends and in their families.

Model what respectful relationships look like for their peers and for younger generations.

Advocate for gender equality in every space they occupy—from the classroom to the workplace.

Programs that bring men and boys into these conversations have proven incredibly effective. They work because they shift the culture from the inside out, making prevention a collective effort.

"How Do I Argue Against 'Cultural Relativism'?"

Sooner or later, you'll hear a delegate claim that a harmful practice is just "part of their culture" and therefore off-limits to international debate. This is a common tactic to shut down discussion. Don't let it.

Your counter-argument should pivot the debate immediately to universal human rights.

Frame your response carefully: this isn't an attack on any single culture. It's a defense of a fundamental human right that applies to everyone, everywhere. Point out that international agreements like CEDAW, which most nations have ratified, make it clear that the right to live free from violence is non-negotiable. It supersedes any tradition or practice that inflicts harm.

"What About Technology? How Can It Help?"

Technology isn't a silver bullet, but it's a powerful tool for amplifying prevention efforts. It's especially effective for reaching young people and those in remote areas who might otherwise be left out.

In your resolutions, you can suggest concrete, forward-thinking solutions:

Launch widespread awareness campaigns on social media platforms where young people are already active.

Develop mobile apps that offer safe, confidential ways for survivors to report violence and find help.

Create online counseling and support services for those who can't access in-person resources.

By including clauses that fund digital literacy and tech-based support systems, you show your committee that you're prepared to tackle this long-standing crisis with modern, innovative solutions.

Ready to walk into your next committee with total confidence? Model Diplomat is your AI-powered co-delegate, designed to help you master complex topics like gender-based violence prevention. From in-depth research to crafting award-winning resolutions, our platform gives you the strategic edge you need to excel. Prepare smarter, debate stronger, and make your mark.