State of the Evidence: A Systematic Review of Approaches to Reduce Gender-Based Violence and Support the Empowerment of Adolescent Girls in Humanitarian Settings

Abstract

Adolescent girls are at an increased risk of sexual violence, abuse, exploitation, and forced or early marriage across humanitarian contexts. In the past few years, prominent initiatives, organizations, and working groups have started to highlight the targeted needs and issues facing adolescent girls and have developed programmatic responses such as safe spaces for adolescent girls to protect and empower girls and reduce their vulnerabilities to violence or exploitation. A systematic review of academic and grey literature was conducted in September 2015 to examine the evidence base for programming that seeks to reduce violence against adolescent girls in humanitarian contexts. The authors used a Boolean search procedure to find and review 5830 records from academic journal databases, resource-hosting websites and relevant organizational websites. The inclusion criteria left us with three adolescent girl program evaluations from humanitarian settings to examine, all of which were pre/post-test evaluations that looked at changes in indicators such as social assets, self-esteem, decision making, livelihood skills and financial assets, gender norms, and feelings of safety. While these three evaluations showed promising results, overall, this systematic review demonstrates a significant gap in currently available rigorous research. Evidence is urgently needed to guide programming decisions to ensure that the emerging programs provide the level and depth of protection that adolescent girls need in humanitarian settings.

Exploring resource scarcity and contextual influences on wellbeing among young refugees in Bidi Bidi refugee settlement, Uganda: findings from a qualitative study

“…Strategies could address structural drivers of resource scarcity and SGBV alongside developing contextually specific SGBV and health promoting programs [27,47]. There is a need to build the evidence base of efficacious strategies for reducing SGBV among adolescent girls and young women in humanitarian contexts [28,47]; while taken as good practice, there is a need to further evaluate system level approaches including referrals, justice and legal aid, safety and risk mitigation (e.g. lighting at water sources) [47].…”

“…lighting at water sources) [47]. Other promising approaches with adolescent girls include livelihoods and social asset development, mentorship, and safe spaces; yet these approaches require further rigorous evaluation and study design [28] and gender and age tailored strategies for refugee adolescent boys and young men can also be developed. Together, findings can inform future research and practice focused on developing enabling social environments to promote refugee adolescent and youth wellbeing, including reducing SGBV and resource scarcity, and addressing current and long-term impacts of COVID-19.…”

“…Unaddressed stressors in adolescence, including poverty, conflict and violence, have life-long harmful impacts on wellbeing [25,26]. Researchers call attention to the importance of understanding contextual drivers of SGBV among adolescent girls and young women in low and middle income countries (LMIC) [27], and underscore the need for further research on SGBV prevention needs for adolescent girls and young women in humanitarian settings [28].…”

Panorama científico de la relación entre la violencia intrafamiliar y de género y la resiliencia familiar: posibilidades, retos y límites

“…Como complemento, también se destaca el marcado énfasis en los niños y niñas como lo resaltan, Beetham et al (2019), Dubowitz et al (2016), Elrofaie et al (2016), Fong et al 2019; Happer et al (2017), McDonald, Corona et al (2016) y McDonald, Graham-Bermann et al, (2016. Finalmente, en los jóvenes y adolescentes en la vifg (Ahmad, Ishtiaq, & Mustafa, 2017;Romero, Hall, Cluver, & Meinck, 2018) y adolescentes desde una visión de género (Namy et al, 2017;Noble, Ward, French, & Falb, 2019).…”

Preventing violence against refugee adolescent girls: findings from a cluster randomised controlled trial in Ethiopia

“…A recent systematic review of approaches to reducing GBV against adolescent girls in humanitarian settings found only three evaluations in the academic literature, all of which used weak pretest and post-test designs. 22 Additionally, none of the 38 adolescent IPV prevention interventions identified in a recent Cochrane review were implemented in humanitarian settings. 23 As suggested by these reviews, significant knowledge gaps persist around effective strategies for reducing experiences of violence and promoting positive development for adolescent girls in humanitarian settings.…”