Publication: Girl Empower – A Gender Transformative Mentoring and Cash Transfer Intervention to Promote Adolescent Wellbeing: Impact Findings from a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in Liberia
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Date
2020-04
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Published
2020-04
Author(s)
Hallman, Kelly
Guimond, Marie-France
Kelvin, Elizabeth A.
Rogers, Marian
Karnley, Esther
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Abstract
We evaluated Girl Empower – an intervention that aimed to equip adolescent girls with the skills to make healthy, strategic life choices and to stay safe from sexual abuse using a cluster-randomized controlled trial. Girl Empower led to sustained improvements in several important domains, including sexual and reproductive health, but did not reduce sexual violence among the target population.
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Publication Combining Mentoring Programs with Cash Transfers for Adolescent Girls in Liberia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-08)This report presents findings from the baseline assessment of International Rescue Committee's (IRC) Girl Empower (GE) program in Nimba County, Liberia. GE seeks to help 13 to 14 year-old girls make healthy life choices and decrease their risk of sexual abuse. The program centers on weekly meetings between girls and trained local mentors, during which the girls learn about life skills and financial literacy. GE also holds monthly discussion groups for participants' caregivers, and trains local health and psychosocial care providers on how to improve and expand services for survivors of gender-based violence. This baseline report is part of a cluster-randomized controlled trial, which aims to assess the program's impact 24 months after baseline. 21 percent of the baseline sample of 13-14 year-old females reported having previously had sex. Within this group, 29 percent indicated that their first sexual act was non-consensual. Among all GE girls, 37 percent reported having experienced sexual violence of some type, such as being physically forced to have sex, non-physically pressured (coerced/persuaded) to have sex, someone unsuccessfully attempting to have sex with them, and being touched in a sexual way. The levels of nonconsensual first sex and any experience of nonconsensual sex are at the high end of the range reported by the UNICEF Violence against Children Surveys (VACS) in Swaziland, Tanzania, Kenya and Zimbabwe. As the VACS reporting is for (a variety of) age ranges, each of which is higher than that in this study, the levels of sexual violence reported here are very high in comparison.Publication Empowering Adolescent Girls(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-12)Nearly 60 percent of Uganda's population is aged below twenty. This generation faces health and economic challenges associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), early pregnancy, and unemployment. Whether these challenges are due to a lack of information and or vocational skills is however uncertain. A programme was conducted to provide: (i) vocational training to run small-scale enterprises; and (ii) information on health and risky behaviors. The programme conducted, positively impacts behaviors on both economic and health margins. On economic margins, the intervention raises the likelihood that girls engage in income generating activities by 32 percent mainly driven by increased participation in self-employment. On health related margins, self-reported routine condom usage increases by 50 percent among the sexually active, and the probability of having a child decreases by 26 percent. Strikingly, the share of girls reporting sex against their will drops from 21 percent to almost zero. The findings suggest combined interventions might be more effective among adolescent girls than single-pronged interventions aiming to improve labor market outcomes solely through vocational training, or to change risky behaviors solely through education programmes.Publication Interventions to Prevent or Reduce Violence Against Women and Girls : A Systematic Review of Reviews(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014)Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) is a pervasive global problem. It is a violation of basic human rights and a drag on development. Much of the research to-date on the topic-including a major recent World Health Organization study to produce global prevalence rates has focused on better understanding the scale and nature of the problem. The present study builds on this body or research while shifting focus to synthesizing global evidence on potential solutions. 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The program increased the likelihood of participants engaging in income-generating activities by 32 percent; self-reported routine condom use by those who were sexually active increased by 50 percent; fertility rates dropped by 26 percent; and there was a 76 percent reduction in adolescent girls reporting having had sex against their will during the past year.Publication Addressing Gender-Based Violence in the Latin American and Caribbean Region : A Critical Review of Interventions(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004-10)The authors present an overview of gender-based violence (GBV) in Latin America, with special emphasis on good practice interventions to prevent GBV or offer services to its survivors or perpetrators. Intimate partner violence and sexual coercion are the most common forms of GBV, and these are the types of GBV that they analyze. GBV has serious consequences for women's health and well-being, ranging from fatal outcomes, such as homicide, suicide, and AIDS-related deaths, to nonfatal outcomes, such as physical injuries, chronic pain syndrome, gastrointestinal disorders, complications during pregnancy, miscarriage, and low birth-weight of children. GBV also poses significant costs for the economies of developing countries, including lower worker productivity and incomes, and lower rates of accumulation of human and social capital. The authors examine good practice approaches in justice, health, education, and multisectoral approaches. In each sector, they identify good practices for: (1) law and policies; (2) institutional reforms; (3) community-level interventions; and (4) individual behavior change strategies.
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