Violence and sexual and reproductive health service disruption among girls and young women during COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal: A cross-sectional study using interactive voice response survey

Abstract

Introduction There is a paucity of data on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on girls and young women. The study examines the prevalence and correlates of violence and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) service disruption among girls and young women during COVID-19 restrictions and lockdown. Methods An interactive voice response survey was conducted among girls and women aged 18–24 years between 10th March to 24th April 2021. The survey enrolled 1314 participants. Descriptive analysis was used to assess prevalence of violence and SRH service disruption. Two sampled test of proportion was used to asses difference in prevalence of violence before and after the pandemic. Logistic regression was used to examine relationship between the outcome variables and socio demographic predictors. Results The study did not find significant difference in prevalence of violence before and after the pandemic. Education was found to be protective against experience of both physical and sexual violence after the pandemic. Dalit participants were four times more likely to report physical violence after the pandemic than Brahmin/Chhetri participants (OR:3.80; CI:1.41–10.24). Participants from 22-24-year age group were twice as likely to experience sexual violence compared to girls and participants from 18-21year age group (OR:2.25; CI:1.04–4.84). Participants from urban municipalities were 29% less likely to report SRH services disruption than participants from rural municipalities (OR-0.71, 95% CI: 0.55–0.91). Participants with disability were twice as likely to report disruption than participants without disability (OR-2.35, 95% CI: 1.45–3.82). Conclusions To reduce violence against girls and women due to the pandemic, interventions should focus on Dalit women and on preventing education discontinuation among girls and women. SRH service during the pandemic needs to be improved for girls and women with focus on girls and women from rural municipalities and girls and women with disability.

Leveraging interactive voice response technology to mitigate COVID-19 risk in refugee settlements in Uganda: Lessons learned implementing “Dial-COVID” a toll-free mobile phone symptom surveillance and information dissemination tool

“…IVR has previously been used in remote and humanitarian contexts including in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana, Haiti, Niger, and Somalia to collect and disseminate information on a host of topics including food insecurity, cash transfers, aid presence, health behavior, and violence prevention [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]. It is a flexible system that lends itself to a range of different content and has effectively been used in low-and middle-income countries for both information collection and dissemination during the COVID-19 pandemic [30][31][32][33][34]. IVR can be used as a standalone tool, or can be combined with other tools/methods to augment data collection and dissemination as was done by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh, where participants were screened using an IVR survey to identify those eligible to receive a call back with a specific needs assessment survey [23, 24,35].…”

Intimate partner violence, food insecurity and COVID-19 among newly married women in Nawalparasi district of Nepal: a longitudinal study

“…Our findings add to the growing body of literature about the impacts of COVID-19 on violence, which has so far found mixed evidence in Nepal as a whole, but some evidence of increased risk among subgroups. 38 , 40 Our study highlights that young married women in rural parts of Nepal who are already exposed to high levels of violence face increased rates of violence in a time of lockdown and crises like COVID-19.…”

“…Our analysis has included several risk factors for IPV against women, based on published literature and consistent with prior published analyses from this study. 14 , 35 , 38 At the individual level, participant baseline current age (continuous), caste (categorised as Brahmin/Chhetri, indigenous groups and so-called untouchables/religious minority groups), marriage type (love vs arranged marriage), receipt of dowry (yes/no), level of education (<6 years, 6–12 and over 12 years) and religion (Hindu vs non-Hindu) were included. Although shown in Table 1 for context, we did not include age at marriage or marriage duration into the models due to potential collinearity with age.…”

Matters of Gender and Social Disparities Regarding Postnatal Care Use Among Nepalese Women: A Cross-Sectional Study in Morang District

“…In addition, Dalit women are more likely to be the victims of violence, sexual assault, and harassment, which restrict their freedom of movement and prevents them from traveling. 12–15 , 25 , 37 , 38 The lower PNC use among Dalit women may also be related to poor self-awareness and lack of health information accessibility due to social bias. Many women in our study areas revealed that they were unaware of risky conditions and adverse events after delivery.…”