“The child of your fellow is your child”: Building on existing protective norms to engage men as caregivers; qualitative findings from an exploratory evaluation of an edutainment intervention to prevent age-disparate transactional sex

Evidence on the importance of engaging men in preventing violence against women and girls has increased over the past decade, yet efforts often focus on men as partners rather than caregivers. This paper examines qualitative data from an evaluation of the Learning Initiative on Norms, Exploitation and Abuse radio drama intervention aimed at preventing age-disparate transactional sex in Tanzania’s Shinyanga region. We delivered the drama to households on flash drives and led structured household discussion sessions. We conducted in-depth interviews with 18 adult men caregivers before (September 2021) and after the intervention (December 2021) and used thematic analysis and the framework method to examine indications of change in attitudes, beliefs, norms and behaviours. Findings provided practical lessons for future interventions aiming to engage men, specifically as caregivers, and demonstrated promising indications of change. We found that the home-based delivery of the intervention coupled with household discussions led to high engagement from men. This engagement fostered expansion of participant’s conceptualisation of fatherhood to include discussing (age-disparate transactional) sex with adolescent girls, as well as with other men in the community, with the goal of protecting girls. We also found that the drama led to an expansion of the existing norm that it is everyone’s responsibility within a community to protect girls, to include protecting girls from age-disparate transactional sex; highlighting the success of norms programming that reinforces existing positive norms rather than introducing new norms. This study highlights the potential for edutainment using a variety of acceptable and relatable characters and storylines to model positive behaviours performed by men, and home-based, discussion-oriented approaches to foster meaningful change. Finally, this study’s findings offer valuable insights for developing effective strategies to engage men in violence prevention, while ensuring they remain accountable to the needs and priorities of women and girls.