Learning Centre
What is a harmful practice?
Harmful practices refers to a number of regular or customary practices and behaviours that cause harm. These arise from deep-seated inequalities and discriminatory beliefs due to a person’s sex or gender, race or ethnicity, age, religion or immigration status and other grounds which can be multiple and/or intersecting. They can be due to cultural and religious tradition, the attainment or maintenance of power/control, or learned social behaviours. Victims/survivors can be of all ages and genders, however the majority are women and girls, and these practices can cause physical, sexual and/or psychological harm.
Not all traditional/cultural practices are harmful with many promoting positive community cohesion and systems of support. Often there are strong beliefs that such practices are an important part of acceptance and belonging.
Educational Media
Toolkit
Supporting victim-survivors with protected characteristics: a resources bank
Our free, downloadable toolkit has an evolving list of web resources to support work on types of domestic abuse and harmful practices (e.g. early and forced marriage and FGM). You can sort and select these according to protected characteristics, language/accessibility and topic using the arrows at the top. We’ve also provided a contact list of support organisations. Let us know if there’s anything we should add!