A stage performance with two people acting for an audience of people. A sign marked "USAID" is in the background.

Taking a Stand Onstage .

An interactive drama technique called “forum theater” is teaching Palestinian citizens about gender-based violence and showing them how to address the social issue.

The stage lights brighten slowly, casting shadows across an audience sitting quietly in a theater. Three men and two women, already standing on stage and dressed in everyday clothes, start to act out a vignette. The performance takes perhaps 15 minutes, and then they freeze in place. End scene.

Then the auditorium lights come on, and one of the actors starts talking with the audience, asking them questions about the performance they just saw. An initial few tentatively raise their hands and share their thoughts, prompting others to join the conversation. At one point, a young woman is selected to come on the stage and re-enact one of the scenes, but this time acting out what she would have done instead. After she settles back into her seat, the audience is polled again, and another livelier discussion begins. Finally, the curtain closes; the forum theater performance has ended.

Forum theater is an interactive drama technique where the audience is an active participant. By sharing reactions and role-playing alongside the actors, audience members contribute their perspectives and learn from their peers. Performances cover a wide range of topics, but most focus on societal issues and rely on active dialogue to boost awareness and promote social change.

As part of its bigger goal to improve the justice sector in the West Bank and increase citizens’ engagement with the legal system, the Enhanced Palestinian Justice Program (EPJP) facilitated a series of forum theater performances spanning December 2014-January 2015. The USAID-funded program, implemented by Chemonics, focused these performances on gender-based violence (GBV) issues.

Why gender-based violence? In the West Bank, as in other places around the world, GBV continues to be a prevalent social issue. Despite government initiatives like the National Strategy to Combat Violence against Women, GBV, whether social, physical, or psychological, stubbornly persists. As of 2013, 37 percent of women in the region who had ever been married had been subjected to some sort of violence by their husband (UN Women). And Palestinian institutions consistently struggle to gather this data, suggesting that actual rates are much higher than what is reported.

Helping to fuel this scarcity of data is a widespread stigma associated with gender-based violence. According to UN Women, as many as 65 percent of women in the West Bank say that they would stay silent about GBV — a worrying trend that shows that the necessary conversations around this topic are simply not happening.

"As a woman, I am glad to be able to present what we are facing in real life. I believe it is important to combat GBV through all the means and tools we have…this role helped me educate friends and family about equal rights and how to defend those rights."

Hanady Al Barghouthi, actress

Keeping these contextual factors in mind, the EPJP staff decided that the forum theater approach would provide the ideal safe environment to encourage citizens to talk more openly about the sensitive issue. As part of a grant program called “Play your Part,” EPJP partnered with the Institute for Modern Media (IMM) to lead a series of forum theater performances to spur conversations about GBV.

In all, IMM led five performances in Hebron University, Al-Quds University, Nablus Municipality, Qalqilya Municipality, and Ramallah. IMM promoted the plays with posters, local advertisements, and Facebook posts. Each performance included a 30-minute play followed by 30 minutes of discussion with the audience to debate and act out alternative endings. A professional advisor served as mediator and helped facilitate the discussion that, among other things, highlighted different services offered by Palestinian justice sector institutions to deal with GBV. Through the five performances that reached about 320 citizens — a little more than half of them women — 74 percent of audience members reported an increase in awareness about gender-based violence.

A student participant, Moa’ath Seder, noted the value of the heightened awareness brought about by the plays. “This was the first time I heard about something called verbal violence,” she said. “It is very important to highlight this issue. Women deserve respect and deserve to attain their rights.”

320

citizens reached through IMM performances

74%

of audience members reported an increase in awareness about gender-based violence

Another audience member, Jawdat Al Saih, also showed appreciation for learning about the services offered by the government to work through issues related to gender-based violence. “This is a really important play and the first time I heard about the family counseling units,” he said. “It is important to raise awareness about the issue (of gender-based violence) and how to deal with it.”

Even the actors from IMM sensed the significance of these plays to help shift attitudes about GBV more broadly in the West Bank.

“As a woman, I am glad to be able to present what we are facing in real life,” said actress Hanady Al Barghouthi. “I believe it is important to combat GBV through all the means and tools we have…this role helped me educate friends and family about equal rights and how to defend those rights.”