Health action with informed and engaged societies
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Life Skills and Safe Spaces - Changes in Gender Attitudes (including around Rites of Passage)

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Strategy researched
A life skills and safe spaces programme to reduce adolescent girls' experiences of interpersonal violence in a refugee setting

Impact achieved
Adolescents in the intervention reported they believed girls should complete one additional year of schooling as compared with those in the control group (Beta (B)=1.08, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.44-1.761), p=0.001). Girls in the treatment arm also had greater odds than girls in the control arm of believing a girl should get married (adjusted odds ratio (aOR)=1.88, 95% CI 1.07-3.28, p=0.027) and have her first child after age 18 (aOR=2.04, 95% CI 1.25-3.34, p=0.005). Finally, girls in the intervention had 1.71 greater odds (95% CI (1.18-2.49, p=0.005) of reporting having friends their own age and 1.997 greater odds (95% CI 1.44-2.76, p<0.001) of having a trusted non-family female adult in their life, when adjusting for other covariates. Among those married or living with someone as if married at baseline, girls in the treatment arm had lower odds (OR 0.57; 95% CI 0.34-0.95), p=0.032) of being married at endline as compared with those in the control arm.

Country of study
Ethiopia

Research methodology
Cluster RCT

Journal
BMJ Global; 2018

Journal paper title and link
Preventing violence against refugee adolescent girls: findings from a cluster randomised controlled trial in Ethiopia

Excerpt from Abstract
"At 12-month follow-up, the intervention was not significantly associated with reduction in exposure to sexual violence (adjusted OR =0.96, 95% CI 0.59 to 1.57), other forms of violence, transactional sex or feelings of safety. The intervention was associated with improvements in attitudes around rites of passage and identified social supports. Additionally, the intervention showed a decrease in reported child marriage among girls who were married at baseline."