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This study aims to explore the impact of COVID-19 on women and children in the UK who were victims of domestic abuse.

The authors draw from their experiences of working in the domestic abuse sector to reflect on the impact of lockdown restrictions on women and children, focussing on the impact of government restrictions that created an environment in which abusers could control the movement of victims.

The impact of the pandemic was significant as victims were locked into the abuse, unable to escape for fear of breaching lockdown rules. The lockdown affected victims of different forms of violence against women and girls in the UK including forced marriage and female genital mutilation, which highlighted the ramifications of intersectional inequalities for abuse victims.

This paper articulates the devastating impact of the pandemic on vulnerable women, and their fair and just access to the family courts. This paper concludes that women were failed by the government and that there was not nearly enough support from support agencies, which has left many at risk and suffering significant harm.

For decades, researchers studying female genital cutting have sought to understand why the practice continues amidst abundant evidence indicating that serious health consequences can result from the more aggressive forms of cutting. Behavioral ecology theory is applied to data collected among Ghana’s Kassena-Nankana to highlight the gendered cultural forces that keep FGC practice in place through successful reproductive outcomes. With its strong association to marriageability, and thus women’s status and access to resources through marriage, circumcision has long been obligatory. However, the social transformation that is currently underway in this rural population is bringing a new perspective to the value of education, which is replacing circumcision as the resource access currency.

The purpose of this paper is to facilitate a participant led arts-based workshop for survivors of female genital mutilation (FGM) in order to explore their experiences and impact of FGM on health and wellbeing, and to use the artefacts to inform development of an e-learning resource.

The study utilised a creative narrative approach which included the sharing of personal stories, the creation of pottery models and the sharing of artefacts. A narrative approach was chosen as the methodology for the study as narratives are now well established within qualitative research as a meaningful way in which the voices of participants take precedence over those of the researcher. Six women who are living with FGM agreed to take part.

The composition of the workshop essentially encompassed two main strands: the creation of a persona and sharing artefacts. These are described in detail with supplementary images included wherever appropriate. The authors have not attempted to present the findings of the workshop from the perspective of the researcher but have rather enabled the findings to speak for themselves.

There is a paucity of studies which have explored women’s experiences of living with FGM and the impact on health and well-being. The findings suggest that there is further scope for research and practice development which examines the impact of education on professional’s approaches to FGM.

This study and the wider focus towards the impact of FGM beyond the physical or procedural aspects of FGM offer a contribution to the evolving evidence base in this field.

All of these cases are evidence of violence committed against women, for the reason that they are women, i.e. because the status that society accords to their gender permits men (for the most part) to behave violently against women (for the most part). It is obvious that other groups of the population may be affected in a similar manner, but female victims of gender-based violence deserve special attention, not only because they represent the majority of victims, but also because, as opposed to children or the elderly, women can fight the violence both actively and effectively.² Gender-based violence is both of a physical and psychological nature and cuts through all cultures and societies. It is committed within the family (battering, sexual abuse of female children, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital circumcision, and other traditional practices that have proven to be harmful to women; non-spousal violence, and violence that accompanies various forms of female exploitation), in communities (sexual abuse, harassment, and intimidation in the workplace and educational institutions, trafficking in women, and forced prostitution), as well as in society at large (see Table 1).

Around one in five girls in Kenya, aged 15 to 19 years old are either pregnant or have given birth. Of 47 counties, adolescent pregnancy is highest in Narok, where about 40% of girls aged 15 to 19 years old have begun childbearing. This study aims to explore drivers to sexual activity, access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services and barriers to contraceptive use among adolescents in Narok County, Kenya to inform the design of SRH interventions and safeguard young people’s rights to sexual health.

A cross-sectional mixed methods study was conducted in December 2019. Quantitative data were collected through structured questionnaires among girls aged 15 to 19 years old who were either pregnant or had given birth and those who had not and boys aged 15 to 19 years old. Qualitative data were collected through focus group discussions with adolescent girls and boys and through structured key informant interviews with parents, community leaders and health workers.

The mean age at first sexual intercourse for both genders was 15 years. While the majority of girls and boys knew where to access SRH services, few used contraception during their last sexual activity. There was no significant difference in the condom or other contraceptive methods use between girls who had begun child bearing and those who had not (p = 0.549 and p = 0.563, respectively). Key drivers for sexual activity among young people were poverty and peer pressure. Cultural practices such as female genital mutilation and early marriage contributed to early sex. Community attitudes toward contraception discouraged young people from taking up contraceptives.

This mixed methods study explores the drivers of adolescent pregnancy in Narok, Kenya, the county with the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy; twice the national pregnancy rates. Understanding the drivers of pregnancy and the underlying human rights violations will help policymakers and health leaders to design interventions which will improve outcomes.

“Honour”-based violence (HBV), a form of gender-based violence (GBV), has received increasing interest from media, human rights organisations, academics and the public. A significant increase in the occurrence and reporting of HBV in many parts of the world and its detrimental impact on the health and well-being of women, girls, communities and wider society; marks it as a major public health concern. However, awareness and recognition of HBV in the field of public health is low in many countries and there is little known about its nature, roots and distribution. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The literature was searched using the Scopus database and a series of search terms related to HBV, GBV and health and well-being.

Definition of HBV and its forms is varied across cultures. There is a lack of consensus on how HBV can be identified over other forms of violence and no explicit theoretical perspectives have been sufficiently developed to deepen the understanding of HBV. Although the findings from the review suggest that HBV forms and patterns may be regionally distinct, causes emanate from gender-based and socio-economic inequalities.

This review has limitations in that it included only English and Spanish language papers and those accessed through Scopus; it therefore may have excluded papers from other languages, countries and databases. Another major weakness in this review was a lack of papers specifically dedicated to HBV. Despite these weaknesses the paper is an attempt to raise awareness and recognition of HBV in public health research, policy and practice domain.

The findings from the review highlight the complexity of tackling HBV in a globalised world. They also provide insights on how a public health model can be used to analyse both the causes and prevention of HBV. Further, a non-culturalised, unprejudiced and inclusive definition is required to flag-up and record HBV cases.

This paper discusses my perceived positionality in an ethnographic research project on the contentious issue of female circumcision in Southwest Cameroon. My bicultural identity as a Western‐trained, African anthropologist is associated with power because of my perceived alliance with the ‘Whiteman’ (western, rational, scientific knowledge) showing how the anti‐female circumcision campaigns based on discursive practices of mortality and the harmful health effect paradigm have backlashed, suggesting the need to re‐evaluate and be aware of power dynamics between practicing and nonpracticing societies in the construction of the diverse reality of female circumcision. The ritual practice should rather be seen as opened to both rationalisation and modernisation, suggesting that there can be a synergy between local and global, rational science.

In 2002 when we began reviewing papers for possible inclusion in Advances in Gender Research volume 7: Gender Perspectives on Health and Medicine: Key Themes, and Volume 8: Gender Perspectives on Health and Medicine: Reproduction and Sexuality, the popular press was full of headlines about Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) (for references and extended and detailed discussion by researchers and physicians see the editorial by Ronald C. Hamdy, MD, FRCP, FACP (2002) and the letters to the editor (Mikhail, 2003) in the Southern Journal of Medicine).

Efforts at tackling different forms of targeted violence may benefit from lessons generated from the longer‐standing work in tackling violence against women. These include the conceptualisation and articulation of targeted violence as a cause and consequence of inequality, and as a human rights issue. There is a need to develop effective coalitions and to make explicit the relevance and implications of targeted violence across all public services so that those affected receive the support they require. The importance of education and prevention is also highlighted. While such lessons can help reframe the issues and policies around targeted violence, they should not be transposed uncritically.

Violence continues to escalate globally, despite efforts that are being made to curb it. Even though men constitute the majority of the perpetrators of violence, it is indisputable that some of the violence is also perpetrated by women. Qualitative in nature, this chapter is located within the interpretive research approach. Arguments made in this chapter are grounded in a socialist feminism approach, which foregrounds the importance of class and gender. Thus, this chapter drew from desk review and an empirical study conducted in Lesotho, utilising the Female Correctional Institution in Lesotho as the study site. The chapter explores women's perpetration of varied forms of violence. It aims at shedding more light on the drivers of violence perpetrated by women. The study unearthed that women's violence is mainly driven by poverty, gender inequalities, lack of social capital and self-defence. The author argues that future theoretical engagements and policy responses to women's violence could benefit from empirical evidence, which critically engages feminist approaches. The chapter is envisaged to contribute to the current debates on feminist approaches to women's violence.