Theater as a training and awareness tool for gender-based violence for police officers in Bihar state

The eastern Indian state of Bihar has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the country, and policy measures to address this reality are very limited. More than 20,000 cases of violence against women were registered in 2022 in the state (National Crime Records Bureau, 2023).

As a result, women’s level of trust in institutions is very low: cases of Gender-Based Violence are rarely registered with the competent services, perpetrators go unpunished, and situations persist.

The baseline survey conducted at the beginning of the project across 12 districts in Bihar showed evidence of gender bias among male officers:

1. 84% of the officers surveyed reported that in case a woman has to lodge a complaint, the complaint is usually more believable if the woman is also accompanied by her relatives rather than when she comes alone.
2. 83% felt that dangerous incidents like chain-snatching and molestation happen to women because they travel alone.
3. 53% felt that women face incidents of harassment and rape because they do not behave in a socially acceptable manner.
4. 46% believed that the proof of burden lies on the victim in incidents of gender-based violence.

In an attempt to curb the growing curve of gender-based violence, the training developed by Mittika aims to sensitize police officers on this type of violence through techniques that combine expressive arts and theater combined with knowledge from behavioral science.

It emphasizes immersive, experiential learning methods that have proven effective across diverse contexts in multiple studies. The program was designed over a two-year period in close collaboration with senior officials from the Bihar Police, legal experts, and seasoned theatre practitioners with prior experience working alongside state police forces.

The 35-hour training program was implemented at 419 police stations, targeting 4,000 officers. The sessions were conducted with groups of no more than 25–30 officers each and led by two facilitators who are experts in teaching the expressive arts.

For more details on the tools developed during the project, see our article.

Through FID’s funding, DAI Research & Advisory Services, in partnership with the state of Bihar, conducted a randomized control trial in 419 police stations (close to 3000 officers serving 42 million citizens) in the 12 study districts, covering 37% of the police stations in the state of Bihar. The evaluation aimed to assess the impact of the training on police performance, mindset of officers, and measure how these changes may improve women’s experience with institutions.

The project team collected data from several sources:

• The police officers’ survey at baseline and endline to measure victim-blaming, truthfulness perception of GBV reports, acceptance towards gender and GBV, empathy, and technical and legal knowledge of the officers regarding GBV.
• A reflection survey at the end of the 3-day training to measure immediate reactions of participants to the training.
• The Female Constables’ survey to test the hypothesis that the intervention creates a change in the behaviors and attitudes of trained male officers towards the females in their workplace.
• The research team also carried out a “decoy victim” exercise inspired by earlier studies (Das et al., 2016; Banerjee et al., 2017) in 185 of the 419 police stations: In this approach, trained staff posed as victims using a standardized scenario when interacting with police. This approach allows to measure how training affects police practices and interactions in real situations.

Research team:

• Nishith Prakash is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Northeastern University. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Houston and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University. He is a Research Fellow at IZA, CESifo, and Innovations for Poverty Action, and serves as Associate Editor at the Journal of Development Economics.
• Sofia Amaral is an Economist at the World Bank's South Asia Region Gender Innovation Lab. She is a CESifo Research Affiliate and IZA Research Fellow. Her research focuses on violence against women and children, gender, and economics of crime.
• Maria Micaela Sviatschi is an Associate Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She is affiliated with NBER, CESifo, and BREAD. Her research covers two main areas: how children enter criminal careers in drug trafficking and gangs, and the role of policing and social norms in reducing gender-based violence.
• Girija Borker is a Research Economist in the Development Impact Department at the World Bank, where she leads the Gender Program. Her research focuses on women's economic participation, violence, and mobility in developing countries, with an emphasis on scalable policy solutions.