This post is written by Yudit Sidikman, Co-Founder of President of El HaLev, a Consultative NGO for the Economic and Social Committee of the U.N. (ECOSOC), and Dr Jelena Nolan-Roll, violence prevention expert and activist.

  • The problem: The violence pandemic is getting more serious, and efforts so far are not enough to prevent it.
  • Why it matters: Violence stops people from achieving their full potential and living fulfilled lives.
  • The solution: Empowerment Self Defence (ESD) is an evidence-based method which can interrupt and prevent violence. It’s already working in more than 20 countries around the world, and it needs broader visibility and support.

Violence against women and children is of pandemic proportions, exacerbated by COVID-19. Data from The World Health Organisation shows that 27 per cent of women aged between 15-49 have experienced physical or sexual violence (Sardinha et al, 2022). If you think that is worrying, it gets worse. These numbers are from before the COVID pandemic; during lockdown, rates of violence soared (Bourgault et al, 2021). These statistics imply that current violence reduction/prevention methods are not working.

Enter Empowerment Self Defence (ESD) - effective, evidence-based and consistently showing results.

ESD is an intervention method based on evidence which shows that the best (and cheapest, if you look at prevention investment data) way to interrupt violence is to prevent it. It encompasses both psychological and physical skills. The ESD toolbox of self-defence tools contains everything from assertiveness, (learning how to say no or effectively communicate your boundaries), to intuition (learning how to recognise and listen to it) to allowing space and time to practice effective physical skills when we are in a situation which is impossible to de-escalate (i.e., when someone attacks us while running in the park, go for the groin). In addition, ESD teaches the importance of “tell”, of sharing our story. ESD also encourages us to look after ourselves and heal.

How ESD works

Since its inception, ESD has shown consistent results in the interruption of, healing from, and prevention of, violence (O’Loughlin 2019; Hollander et al 2018).

Empowerment Self Defence skills are very similar to first aid skills: they can be taught quickly. They don’t take long years of practice for one to become well versed in them. For example, by learning to read the situation and using de-escalation skills, one can prevent and interrupt violent encounters.

Some think it sounds too idealistic.

Others show that it works.

PAVE Prevention brought ESD to the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO).   PAVE Prevention, Inc is a social enterprise which provides training and consulting services to individuals and organizations - and the communities in which they operate – to proactively prevent, respond and heal from violent events.  MACRO is a community response program for non-violent, non-emergency 911 calls. Its goal is to reduce responses by police, resulting in fewer arrests and negative interactions, and increased access to community-based services and resources for impacted individuals and families, most especially for African Americans, indigenous people, and people of colour (BIPOC). The ESD training PAVE Prevention is providing will help them reach that goal effectively.

Research also shows that empowering self-defence training can alleviate the symptoms of posttraumatic stress for survivors of sexual assault (O’Loughlin, 2019). So, in Toronto, Canada, Nellie’s Shelter is bringing ESD to their employees so they can better support survivors. In the words of Jyoti Singh, Executive Director: “It can’t just be about Band-Aid solutions anymore. If this pandemic has highlighted anything, it is that we have not moved the needle one bit when it comes to violence prevention.” After training, they noted that “The feedback [from those who attended] was overwhelmingly positive. It was quite healing because we are often so busy helping others that we don’t often take stock of where boundaries are being crossed in our own lives.”

Educating people about ESD

Across the Atlantic, in Albania, ESD is trickling into the secondary school’s curriculum thanks to the efforts of ESD Global, an NGO whose mission is to establish ESD training as a key violence prevention strategy, UNWomen and the Minister of State for Youth and Children Bora Muzhaqi. From August 2021 to May 2022, 1,560 pupils aged 10-18 years old, and 87 teachers from primary and high schools went through the training.

“My life would have been different if I had done this training when I was 15,” says Deni Sanxhaku, one of the 14 social workers and activists who took part in a training-of-trainers ESD course on empowerment and self-defence in Albania, which many described as “life-changing”.

There is an evidence-based violence prevention method which can effectively tackle the violence pandemic we currently live in. Empowerment Self Defence (ESD) can address the spectrum of violence from prevention to interruption, to healing.

It can be taught to anyone (including people with disabilities, young people, and the elderly) in as little as 16 hours. ESD consistently shows results in violence prevention and provides a higher quality of life to its participants, through raised self-efficacy, better relational boundaries, and learning to honour one’s own intuition.

ESD consistently shows results in violence prevention and provides a higher quality of life to its participants, through raised self-efficacy, better relational boundaries, and learning to honour one’s own intuition.

ESD, and this post, are for everyone. However, for these skills to reach maximum efficacy in violence prevention, ESD should be first and foremost embraced and practised by people who influence the culture of how people treat each other: social workers, educators, psychologists, coaches, managers, doctors/nurses, yoga instructors, martial artists, victim advocates, police officers, firefighters, paramedics, military leaders (anyone with any command), building security guards, policymakers, HR professionals, etc.

A bright, new future

Once we inject this skill set into the people influencing the space between violence and peace, they transfer it forward to the people they work and interact with, and this prevents future violence.

As it is quite new, ESD often gets mistaken for a martial art (it is not), or victim-blaming (also not: ESD teaches that there is only one person to blame for the attack, and that is the one who assaults). So, it lacks support from higher levels of policymakers. This obstructs its take-up by the institutions. However, both institutions and individuals who do sign up for it and practice ESD see an increase in productivity and a decrease in violence.

Therefore, everyone should know about ESD and invite policymakers to join us in either one of our many online encounters where we talk about it or in our Facebook space where they can connect with practitioners from every continent.

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(Image Credit: Unsplash)