Sexual violence is endemic. These problems are more pronounced in developing regions like the Middle East, where women face not only the threat of violence but also communal pressures to stay silent. Societal organizations have battled back through educational initiatives that disrupt hegemonic, patriarchal norms – framing assault and rape as permissible acts. Such work is being undertaken now in Turkey where civic groups face an uphill struggle due to conservative resistance that misappropriates cultural and religious values to justify gender inequality. This leads to an obvious but unanswered question: when do educational initiatives succeed in reducing sexual violence? This project intends to answers this question. Conducted under the guidance of Dr. Sean Yom of Temple University’s political science department and through research grants from the Office of Vice-Provost, I am traveling to Turkey to evaluate the educational process of civic advocacy. Through information sharing with activists, teachers, aggressors, and victims in Istanbul and outlying rural areas, I am testing two hypotheses. First, educational initiatives are more successful in urban rather than rural areas due to structure and demography: cities and towns not only have a greater density of civic activists but also smaller households that incubate less conservative values. Second, educational initiatives are more successful when they require men to encounter real victims of sexual violence, because confronting the emotional and human consequences of criminal behavior can deter future acts of violence.