This brief describes how RinGs worked with the ReBUILD Research Programme Consortium to stimulate and embed gendered research within the partnership. It includes detail on how the collaboration fostered new ways of knowing and framing problems in health systems research. How it provided channels of capacity development on gender and intersectionality analysis. How it influenced policy and […]
A new way to prevent HIV, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), can provide protection where condoms are not used. Integrating it into HIV and sexual health programming for various communities has become a focus of researchers and health and development agencies. However, PrEP raises important challenges in the context of female sex work. To protect sexual and reproductive health and avoid pregnancy, PrEP must be used with condoms but that may be difficult where clients perceive PrEP as an alternative. Frequent HIV testing and medicalisation of HIV prevention in low-income settings presents challenges for those who lack the rights and…
Streams of Influence tells the story of how the Gender, Power and Sexuality programme that sought to bring about positive changes on gender equality imagined and then experienced the process of influencing. Along the way there were the positives in terms of actions and outcomes going to plan, there were also some unintended but nonetheless welcome effects, but there were also a few activities that didn’t work as well as hoped. Programme partners also experienced periods of doubt, struggle and confusion.
After years of passionate advocacy informed by solid policy work on the ground, the global response to HIV/AIDS is better resourced. Poor countries can absorb considerably higher levels of aid than they currently receive, but recent increases in funding have generated a number of concerns. This paper analyses the capacity of NGOs, community-based organisations and governments to ensure that the influx of funds has a significant effect on the HIV epidemic and people’s lives. Limited absorptive capacity may be an obstacle to the uptake of funding. To avoid community-based organisations being over-stretched by AIDS and to ensure capacity is maintained,…
This report synthesises learning from these audits and is part of a larger project that focuses on understanding the links between sexuality, gender plurality and poverty with the aim of improving socioeconomic policy and programming to support people marginalised because of their sexuality. The project was instigated as a result of earlier research by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Sexuality and Development Programme and partners. This research indicated that sexuality is directly related to physical, social and economic wellbeing, political participation and socioeconomic inclusion and the realisation of human rights, particularly for the poor and most marginalised (Jolly 2006;…
The global economic crisis is showing the cracks in the surface of how patriarchy is lived in everyday lives; is now not the right time to refocus the discussion? Can we reclaim ‘patriarchy’ from the analysis of all men as patriarchs? How do we understand masculinities in a more political way? How do we address the ways that patriarchy is bad for men, whilst still recognising the battles for women’s rights? What are the implications of rights language for an understanding of patriarchy? If marriage as an institution is the foundation of patriarchy, why are gay and lesbian movements so…
This pioneering collection explores the ways in which positive, pleasure-focused approaches to sexuality can empower women. Gender and development has tended to engage with sexuality only in relation to violence and ill-health. Although this has been hugely important in challenging violence against women, over-emphasizing these negative aspects has dovetailed with conservative ideologies that associate women’s sexualities with danger and fear. On the other hand, the media, the pharmaceutical industry, and pornography more broadly celebrate the pleasures of sex in ways that can be just as oppressive, often implying that only certain types of people – young, heterosexual, able-bodied, HIV-negative -…
There is growing interest in the ways in which legal and human rights issues related to sex work affect sex workers’ vulnerability to HIV and abuses including human trafficking and sexual exploitation. International agencies, such as UNAIDS, have called for decriminalisation of sex work because the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services is affected by criminalisation and social exclusion as experienced by sex workers. The paper reflects on the connections in various actors’ framings between sex workers sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and the ways that international law is interpreted in policing and regulatory practices.
The idea for this supplement arose from discussions among a set of research partners associated with the Realising Rights Research Programme Consortium (RR RPC), an international partnership funded by the UK Department for International Development from 2005-10 that focused on neglected areas of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). In the Consortium, work on rights has been concerned with ways of bridging the gap between international legal human rights frameworks as applied to SRHR, and how these play out for actual people ‘on the ground’. We noted that there was a well-developed international language of human rights in relation to sexual…
This commentary introduces the HARPS supplement on getting research into policy and practice in sexual and reproductive health (SRH). The papers in this supplement have been produced by the Sexual Health and HIV Evidence into Practice (SHHEP) collaboration of international research, practitioner and advocacy organizations based in research programmes funded by the UK Department for International Development.