Voice and Agency: Empowering women and girls for shared prosperity

The World Bank has released a cutting-edge report. It discusses the barriers that women and girls around the world face and offers promising interventions.

Improving Children's Lives, Transforming the Future

UNICEF report examines the ways in which the lives of children, in eight countries of South Asia, have changed over the last 25 years.

'SASA! is the medicine that treats violence'

, ; Qualitative findings on how a community mobilisation intervention to prevent violence against women created change in Kampala

Qualitative findings on how the STRIVE community mobilisation intervention to prevent violence against women created change in Kampala, Uganda.

The SASA! approach has demonstrated the potential of social norm change interventions at the community level to achieve meaningful impact within project timeframes.

Findings from the SASA! Study

, ; Findings from the SASA! Study

A cluster-randomised trial to assess the impact of a community mobilization intervention to prevent violence against women and reduce HIV risk in Kampala, Uganda.

SASA! achieved important community-level impacts on attitudes and behaviours relating to violence and HIV-risk, according to this study. Importantly, intervention impacts were seen at the community level – not just among people reporting exposure to the SASA! intervention – suggesting that social diffusion worked to disseminate SASA! ideas and behaviours throughout the community.

Galeshewe Stories: A booklet produced by the Northern Cape community alcohol advocacy project

 

STRIVE affiliate member, Soul City, trained young people to collecct personal stories on the impact of alcohol on their families, their friends and themselves. In Galeshewe in the Northern Cape, these young people gathered data about alcohol advertising along with their stories about the role of alcohol in people’s lives. 

My mother drinks a lot and she does things without even herself being aware of these things – at times even asking me what she did when she is sober.

Understanding the masculinities, gender norms and intimate partner violence affecting the female sex workers of northern Karnataka

Existing norms – male dominance, infidelity, violence as a legitimate form of discipline – increase sex workers’ risk of contracting HIV while in intimate relationships.

This qualitative inquiry with the intimate partners of female sex workers aims to:

Evidence reviews: What Works to Prevent Violence

What is known about the root causes and risk factors for violence?

As a first step to answering this question, a research consortium – What Works to Prevent Violence – reviewed the existing evidence on violence against women and girls (VAWG) and on interventions to prevent it.

Gender norms, violence and HIV working group

A social norms perspective can strengthen the capacity of researchers and partner institutions to deliver on the STRIVE agenda.

Spousal violence and HIV: Exploring the linkages in five sub-Saharan African countries

Applying nuanced measures to DHS data from both members of married couples, this study identifies pathways between spousal violence and women’s HIV status.

An increasing body of evidence – including six of seven studies using nationally representative samples – underlies the growing consensus that intimate partner violence contributes to women’s vulnerability to HIV. While a direct effect on HIV status is unlikely, the authors propose a gender-based framework defining two primary pathways of association between a woman’s experience of spousal violence and her HIV status:

Hidden harms: Women's narratives of intimate partner violence in a microbicide trial, South Africa

, ; Hidden harms: Women's narratives of intimate partner violence in a microbicide trial, South Africa

Biomedical trials need to be better equipped to deal with partner violence and conflict. A social science sub-study nested within the Microbiocide Development program (MDP) investigated the connection between trial participation and experiences of partner violence. In 401 interviews with 150 women, more than a third reported intimate partner violence (IPV). Half of these instances were directly related to the women’s involvement in the trial.

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