2012PGY_GirlsFirst_Violence

prepuberty—which is a forbidden anddangerous clinical process. Mistreatmentby medical providers often meansfurther medical complications and littleaccess to necessary medical treatmentincluding post-exposure prophylaxisfor HIV and other sexually transmittedinfections and emergency contraceptionto decrease risk of pregnancy. Becauseof their age, girls are required to beaccompanied by a trusted guardian orombudsman for many services. This canhinder justice because a high proportionof perpetrators are family members andother people who are close to families.Sometimes culpable or complicit adultsmust give consent for medical treatmentfor the initiation of legal processes. 33Furthermore, legal systems are complexand difficult to navigate, even for adults.Many countries lack laws to protect andpromote the rights of women and girls.The Adolescent Girls Legal DefenseFund has developed guidelines for betteraddressing violations of girls’ rightsand equipping legal systems to meetthe needs of adolescent girls. Amongtheir recommendations:• Require gender-sensitivity trainingfor all personnel (police, prosecutors,clinicians, and judges) who deal withadolescent girls’ legal needs.• Ensure that medical exams arequick, minimally invasive, and carryfew reporting requirements.• Take special measures for adolescentgirls in trials, such as:° Providing separate waitingrooms for survivors and witnessesto avoid contact withperpetrators.° Being sensitive during crossexaminationto counter harassmentof survivors.° Allowing the use of screens orin-camera testimony to avoidcontact with perpetrators.° Keeping girls informed aboutthe legal process and itsoutcomes.° Limiting the number of times asurvivor must testify.° Enforcing time limits withinwhich legal proceedings mustbe initiated and concluded. 3412 A GIRLS FIRST! PUBLICATIONMeasuring results at the levelof the girlJudging from programmatic effortsthus far, there appears to be a deepresistance to center violence-reductionprograms on building the assets of girlsthemselves, even as a first step. Indeedthe failure to measure any change atthe level of the girl is an indicator ofhow off-track we have been. There isa strong bias to measuring inputs (likeradio messages and number of policetrained) rather than girl-level change.While it is important to document thethoroughness of the implementation,the most salient results are the returnsto the core client population.A clear indication that a programis girl-centered is that it has girl-levelmeasures. Existing research suggeststhat there are a number of types ofsocial capital (friendship networks, affiliationsto groups that meet regularly)and safety nets 35 (someone to turn to inan emergency or a place to spend thenight) that are protective.There is a final, methodologicalreason to measure results at the levelof the girl. As girls (and the general community)become sensitized, many thingsthat were previously defined as acceptablemay be redefined as unacceptableand reported as violent. Negative reportsabout quality of services increasewhen clients are informed about theirrights or appropriate expectations aboutcare. Similarly, we can expect that adolescentgirls who are sensitized and supportedmay initially report more abuse.Programs cannot guarantee a girl’ssafety, but they can measure how wellprepared she is to deal with violence,by assessing her protective assets,such as having someone to turn to in acrisis and having specific safety plans.Programs can most likely measure shiftinglevels of comfort with violence withinthe community, and they can documentexpanding areas and times of day inwhich girls feel safe. Many of the shorttermmeasures of protective assetsshould be achievable within relativelyshort periods of time. For example, girlscan acquire personal documentationand a more explicit sense of risk in theirenvironment, and can evolve specificplans and knowledge to avoid it.Resources:Learning lab programs,publications, and toolsMultilevel effort to change childmarriage norms and supportmarried girls: Berhane Hewan,Ethiopia 36The Population Council’s BerhaneHewan program in Ethiopia measuredits success at the level of the girl.The program assessed levels of childmarriage, girls’ social isolation andattitudes, along with girls’ comfort indifferent parts of the community andaccess to different degrees of socialparticipation. The program specificallyaddressed the interrelated factors thatmade a girl liable to be married as achild—these included her exclusionfrom school, her lack of friendship networks,her lack of access to a mentoror any kind of safety net (someone toturn to in an emergency). At the sametime, the program engaged gatekeepersand actively discussed child marriage.It incentivized communities tosupport a high proportion of girls goingto school on a regular basis. For thosegirls above school age (often by earlyadolescence with a lack of schooling),girls clubs were established, and thegirls who were already married (regardlessof age) attended girls clubs once aweek. The result of this program was todelay the age at marriage by two years,reducing the acceptance and practiceof an extreme form of sexual violence,and to provide health and social supportto married girls.For more information, seehttp://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3500609.pdf, or contactDr. Annabel Erulkar at aerulkar@popcouncil.org.Girl spaces in school: Our girls, ourfuture—building synergy to endviolence against girls in ZambiaA program underway in Zambia purposefullybuilds girls’ protective assets.Currently, in six schools, four differentorganizations are experimenting with thecreation of girls’ clubs with an emphasison the oldest girls in primary school andthe youngest girls in secondary school, in