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The HERStory Series: Understanding why South African Adolescent Girls and Young Women engage in Transactional Sex and Relationships

The Context

  • Motivations for engaging in transactional sex and transactional relationships (TSR) are complex and diverse, ranging from economic deprivation, hunger and poverty, to desires for social approval, prestige, glamour, and luxury.
  • Socio-cultural norms normalise transactional sex and transactional relationships amongst adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in South Africa, and practices of using sex as a currency for exchange.
  • Our study included data from a range of urban, semi–urban, and rural communities across six provinces of South Africa, all

The HERStory Series: Addressing barriers to open sexuality communication between South African adolescent girls and young women and their mothers to facilitate safe sexual and reproductive decision-making

Summary

  • Open and effective parent–adolescent communication around sexuality and sexual and reproductive health enables informed sexual and reproductive health (SRH) decision-making amongst adolescent girls and young women (AGYW).
  • However, several barriers to sexuality communication between South African AGYW and their parents exist, including an inability or unwillingness to discuss sex, a generation gap, proscriptive socio-cultural guidelines, and mothers’ discomfort, lack of knowledge and self-efficacy, and fear of encouraging promiscuity.
  • As a consequen

Children, Social Assistance and Food Security Research Report

Introduction

This study aims to make sense of the relationship between social assistance and child food practices in South Africa.

The Child Support Grant (CSG) in South Africa, which is the smallest of all the grants, is currently R460 per month after being increased from R450 in April 2021. This grant needs to cover many basic needs for a child – not least nutrition. However, the reality is that the grant is primarily used to buy food; food that is insufficient in quantity and quality to contribute to adequate nutrition.

HERStory2: Process evaluation of the combination HIV prevention intervention for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW), Global Fund grant period 2019 to 2022

From 2016 to the present day, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (the Global Fund) has invested in a combination intervention for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in South Africa, with the aim of reducing HIV incidence, teenage pregnancy, and gender-based violence and increasing retention in school and access to economic opportunities.

Social protection in a time of COVID: Lessons for basic income support

The Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant (Covid-19 SRD) was introduced in South Africa in May 2020 to mitigate the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It provided for people between 18 and 59 years of age, who had no income nor access to any other form of social assistance. This was an unprecedented moment in the history of social security in South Africa, initiated under enormous pressure in a remarkably short space of time.

Implementation Evaluation of PMTCT Option B+ in South Africa, 2018: A mixed-methods, multi-level evaluation of health care provision and user experiences

Introduction

This report highlights findings from an implementation evaluation of Option B+, a Universal test and treat Strategy for HIV infected pregnant and lactating women to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT). This evaluation sought to understand Option B+ implementation in South Africa, three years after the policy was changed. We conducted a mixed-methods, multi-level programme evaluation to understand the views and experiences from policy-makers’, health care providers’ and users’ perspectives and to identify opportunities for programme strengthening.

HERStory: An evaluation of a South African combination HIV prevention intervention for adolescent girls and young women

Executive Summary

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