Problem Management Plus Mindfulness Informed Legal Education (PM + MiLE) Intervention for Addressing Gender-Based Violence and Improving Parenting in South-South Nigeria: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a prevalent global problem that mostly affects females, with a significant impact on exacerbating parenting stress, affecting child upbringing, and their potential engagement in antisocial behaviours. Yet, there is limited intervention addressing this significant problem in Nigeria. Informed by the unique fusion of intersectionality and social learning theories, we make an original and significant contribution by testing a novel Problem Management plus Mindfulness informed Legal Education (PM + MiLE) to understand its feasibility in reducing stress in parenting and awareness of access to legal support channels for women with lived experiences of GBV and with child caring responsibilities in Delta state, Nigeria. We test this intervention using a randomised controlled trial with 24 participants with lived experiences of GBV who were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (PM + MiLE) or a waitlist control group. We found that respondents in the experimental group demonstrated reduced stress in parenting and awareness of legal support channels, including access to justice, compared to the control group. For the control group, the intersectional role of poor economic support, trauma from GBV, coupled with the patriarchal nature of society and culture, was still emphasised as a significant barrier to effective parenting. Insights gained from this case study have significant policy implications. The insights are also relevant and represent an important step in advancing our understanding of interventions for parental stress reduction and access to justice in other countries with a similar prevalence of GBV against women.