seem to be restricted and of minimal effects. In order to achieve the objectives of the movement, many activists and scholars argue that they have to initiate changes in cultural attitudes and norms on a communal level. An example of activism on the local level can be seen in South Africa. The movements of VAW in this context employ a strategy that is based on the 'prevention' approach, which is applicable on individual and societal levels: in families and communities. This movement encourages the individuals and small populations to rethink their attitudes and beliefs in order to create a possibility to alter these deep-rooted beliefs and behaviors, which lead to the acts of violence against women. Another example is the local level movement in East Africa that employs the prevention approach, which is applicable on a communal level. They call this a "raising voices" approach. This approach employs an 'ad hoc' framework that can be used alongside the individual approach where the strategy is to aggravate the status quo issues onto the individuals' and communities' perception and establish a common ground of interests for them to push for the movement, all in a short time period. In addition, on the domestic level, there seems to be many 'autonomous movements.' feminist movements (for VAW) can be understood as "a form of women's mobilization that is devoted to promoting women's status and well-being independently of political parties and other associations that do not have the status of women as their main concern". A number of regions of the world have come together to address violence against women. In South America, the Southern Cone Network Against Domestic Violence has worked extensively to address sexual and domestic violence since 1989. The Latin American and Caribbean Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, formed in 1990, includes representation from twenty-one different countries and has been instrumental in increasing the visibility of VAW. In September 1999, the Heads of States of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met and drafted the "Prevention and Eradication of Violence Against Women and Children", a document condemning violence against women and children, and resolved a set of 13 methods of addressing it, reaching into the legal; social, economic, cultural, and political; social service; and education, training, and awareness building sectors. On the transnational or regional level, the anti-violence movements also deploy different strategies based on the specificities of their cultures and