Tackling sexual harassment I: Evidence from a developing country

Last registered on August 25, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Tackling sexual harassment I: Evidence from a developing country
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003678
Initial registration date
December 30, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 01, 2019, 2:26 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
August 25, 2023, 8:13 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Stanford University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-01-01
End date
2023-08-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Goal 5 of the sustainable development goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015 aims to eliminate all forms of discrimination and violence against women in public and private spheres and to undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources and access to ownership of property. Government of India has identified ending violence against women as a key national priority too. Brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old woman in 2012 in the capital of India led to an outcry against public apathy towards endemic sexual assault and harassment against women.

Pervasive sexual harassment can have debilitating impacts on psychological, economic and social lives of the harassed.Tackling sexual harassment is difficult when there is a lack of reporting by survivors which can perpetuate harassment. Stigma attached to survivors of sexual harassment or assault reduces the likelihood that it gets reported to the police. This creates a lack of knowledge on prevalence of harassment. Lack of information on sexual harassment can create public apathy towards it.
This project aims to undertake interventions to understand what is the role of lack of information about different aspects of the issue (incidence, intensity) and whether sensitization about sexual harassment can help create awareness, empathy for the issue along with its impact on relationships with peers.



External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
sharma, karmini. 2023. "Tackling sexual harassment I: Evidence from a developing country." AEA RCT Registry. August 25. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3678-11.0
Former Citation
sharma, karmini. 2023. "Tackling sexual harassment I: Evidence from a developing country." AEA RCT Registry. August 25. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3678/history/191150
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
A) Information for detection: Raising awareness and knowledge about sexual harassment .
B) Sensitization and information intervention : Providing information about sexual harassment, prevalence ,its impact and and steps to intervene, gender norms and relation with harassment, legal information on sexual harassment in the form of a workshop with collaborating NGO.

Intervention Start Date
2019-02-19
Intervention End Date
2019-10-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Attitudes, Awareness and outcomes related to sexual harassment.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
A.Randomly selected individuals are provided with information on sexual harassment detection.
B.Students in randomly selected classes are provided information on prevalence, legal knowledge and its relation to harassment

Experimental Design Details
Intervention A will be undertaken only with women
Intervention B is to be undertaken for men in randomly selected classes to then collect main outcomes for women in their classes and also for men.
The interventions above will be undertaken in four separate educational institutions.
In one educational institution, half of female students from 1580 will be randomly selected to receive information treatment A, and other half will form the control group. Then male students of 37 randomly selected classes in the same institution will receive intervention B while other 37 randomly selected classes will be the control group.
In two educational institutions with a total of 93 classes, 45 classes were randomly assigned to receive the training with the NGO for male students only and the rest didnot receive any training. All women in all the classes received information about sexual harassment as in intervention A.
In the last education institution, 39 classes were randomized to receive intervention A for 25% of the female students, and 30 were randomized to receive intervention A for 75% of the female students.

Outcomes to be collected are common in all the colleges except college one.The project will track final and mechanism outcomes for women and intermediate or mechanism outcomes for men.
The primary outcomes include:
1)Sexual harassment reporting (formal or informal), attitudes towards reporting, exposure to harassment, awareness and intervention, and perception of prevalence intensities of sexual harassment amongst women, actual reporting.
2)Relationship between men and women as measured by a quiz (that could be performed alone or with either same sex or opposite sex partner randomly assigned to each individual), networks information (at baseline and endline), and nominations for ICC.


Intermediary outcomes include (for both men and women)
1) Perception of peer attitudes, Participation in gender forum/ICC events, attitudes towards gender equality, attitudes towards reporting and support for harassment/rape myths, volunteering and donation for NGOs supporting gender equality and ICC. (this value stays hidden to ensure students do not read about it), list experiment on victim blaming attitudes.
2)Womens beliefs about men for courtship related behaviours, and men's intrinsic attitudes towards sexual harassment. Also beliefs about peer support from others.
3)Students beliefs about reputational costs of sexual harassment.

Secondary outcomes:
1) Labour market aspirations and preferences (for female majority versus male majority environments), psychological well being, academic performance.

We collect both short /medium run and long run outcomes (approximately 2 to 3 years after the intervention).
Randomization Method
randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Individual randomization for interventions in A
Class level randomization for interventions in B and C
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
228 classes
Sample size: planned number of observations
For A+B 7000 students 228 classes
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1) In 37 classes we randomized 25% of students and in 32 classes we randomized 75% of the them to receive intervention A.
2) 76 classes for information intervention B and 83 for control group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
0.2 sd for sexual harassment from treatment units (classes)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee, University of Warwick
IRB Approval Date
2018-12-20
IRB Approval Number
HSS 45/18-19
IRB Name
IFMR
IRB Approval Date
2019-01-10
IRB Approval Number
IRB00007107; FWA00014616; IORG0005894
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
November 30, 2019, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials