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The purpose of this study is to explore how vulnerabilities arising from physical impairments, age, widowhood, forced displacement due to war or natural disasters and sexual orientation affect women’s microfinance-related entrepreneurial activities and economic empowerment.

This paper is a structured literature review and uses preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) method. The paper also uses agency, resources and achievement dimensions of empowerment to assess the findings.

This study reveals that although microfinance services promote women entrepreneurship, they also exacerbate exclusion and further discrimination. Individual-, household-, institutional- and community-level structures shape women’s agencies to access and use loans and conduct entrepreneurial activities; hence, ultimately economic empowerment.

The originality of this paper arises from the conceptual model we synthesised from our review which illustrates how vulnerable women’s agency is shaped by resources and how it affects their achievements in relation to entrepreneurial activities.

This paper aims to examine how an alternative accounting system developed by a marginalised group of women enables them to counter oppressive systems built at the intersections of gender, class and race.

The authors draw on diary notes taken over a period of 13 years in France and Senegal in the context of the first author's family interactions with a community of ten Black immigrant women. The paper relies on Black feminist perspectives, namely, Lorde's work on difference and survival to illuminate how this community of women uses the creative power of its “self-defined differences” to build its own accounting system – a tontine – and work towards its emancipation.

The authors find that to fight oppressive marginalising structures, the women develop a tontine, an autonomous, self-managed, women-made banking system providing them with cash and working on the basis of trust. This alternative accounting scheme endeavours to fulfil their “situated needs”: to build a home of their own in Senegal. The authors conceptualise the tontine as a “situated accounting” scheme built on the women's own terms, on the basis of sisterhood and opacity. This accounting system enables the women to work towards their “situated emancipation”, alleviating the burden of their marginalisation.

This paper gives visibility to vulnerable women's agentic capacities through accounting. As no single story captures the nuances and complexities of accounting, further exploration is encouraged.

This paper contributes to the counter-accounting literature that engages with vulnerable, “othered” populations, shedding light on the counter-practices of accounting within a community of ten Black precarious women. In so doing, this study problematises these counter-practices as intersectional and built on “survival skills”. The paper further outlines the emancipatory potential of alternative systems of accounting. It ends with some reflections on doing research through activist curiosity and the need to rethink academic research and knowledge in opposition to dominant epistemic standards of knowledge creation.

Although some research has been done with entertainment workers in KTV bars, little has been done to gain a qualitative understanding of the vulnerabilities of masseuse women. This is due to a prevalent focus on girls under 18 years, thereby excluding most masseuses. The purpose of this paper is to understand the reality of life as perceived by Phnom Penh’s female masseuses in the lower-priced massage parlors is therefore largely unknown.

In total, 98 female participants completed an interview answering both open and closed questions concerning relationships, stigma and discrimination and personal sexual abuse among other topics.

This study finds that many women working in the massage parlor industry are vulnerable to various threats, including sexual exploitation and abuse. Dependency structures within the massage parlor as well as with their families seem to play a key role in the life situations that can be positive as well as negative, and in some cases both.

This is not a prevalence study so all figures are tentative. The women were deeply concerned that they might be stigmatized further so they may not have revealed the extent of their challenges.

More research and work with this vulnerable group is vital. They should be recognized as a vulnerable group who have rights.

The findings provide a baseline evaluation of the vulnerable conditions of the massage industry for women in Cambodia. Specifically, that stigma, discrimination, physical and sexual abuse, as well as a lack of access to education are all vulnerabilities not commonly covered, especially with adult women working in the entertainment industry.

Understanding the reality of life as perceived by Phnom Penh’s female masseuses in the lower-priced massage parlors is therefore largely unknown so a study of this kind is necessary.

Although some research has been done with entertainment workers in KTV bars, little has been done to gain a qualitative understanding of the vulnerabilities of masseuse women. This is due to a prevalent focus on girls under 18 years, thereby excluding most masseuses. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In total, 98 female participants completed an interview answering both open and closed questions concerning relationships, stigma and discrimination and personal sexual abuse among other topics.

This study finds that many women working in the massage parlor industry are vulnerable to various threats, including sexual exploitation and abuse. Dependency structures within the massage parlor as well as with their families seem to play a key role in the life situations that can be positive as well as negative, and in some cases both.

The findings provide a baseline evaluation of the vulnerable conditions of the massage industry for women in Cambodia. Specifically, that stigma, discrimination, physical and sexual abuse, as well as a lack of access to education are all vulnerabilities not commonly covered, especially with adult women working in the entertainment industry. This research has been adapted from the original transcript “Strive, No Matter What” (Miles et al., 2014).

The paper seeks to understand the reality of life and vulnerabilities as perceived by Phnom Penh’s female masseuses in the lower-priced massage parlors which is largely unknown.

The relationship between women and extreme weather events is a significant issue given differential impact, adaptation strategies and coping mechanisms for genders. However, the women’s vulnerability and its determinants remain an understudied area. The paper aims to fill this important gap in literature by focusing on women’s vulnerability during the recent floods in the rural areas of Indian state of Kerala using primary data. With a focus on identifying the socioeconomic factors associated with women’s vulnerability, this paper also makes policy suggestions to reduce their vulnerability in the face of floods in Kerala where it is becoming a recurrent phenomenon.

This study is based on the primary data collected using structured questionnaire answered exclusively by women respondents. Chi-square tests and ordered logistic regression model have been used to analyze the relation between the women’s vulnerability during floods and their socioeconomic determinants.

The analysis found that the better availability of credit to women, access to information tools and higher income for women can reduce their vulnerability when a sudden disaster strikes.

This study is unique as it focuses on rarely studied topic women’s vulnerability in the face of weather-related disaster in the rural setting, understanding their level of vulnerability and then identifying the associates of the same, this paper makes an exceptional contribution to the literature on women and environment in general.

This paper aims to contribute to growing efforts to “contextualise” young people's experiences of sexual and intimate relationships in research and sex and relationships education (SRE). The study reports on which explored factors young people identified as influencing their relationships – in the past, present and future.

An exploratory, qualitative investigation was conducted using focus groups and in‐depth interviews to elicit young people's attitudes to, and experiences of, intimate relationships. A diverse group of young men and women (N=52) were purposively sampled from a range of agencies, including supported accommodation units, a young offenders' institution and two boarding schools.

Peer groups, a need for protection and companionship, and previous negative relationships variously influenced young people's experiences in early youth. Access to potential partners, other priorities, and the degree to which young people could offer a critical assessment of a relationship played a role in explaining current relationship attitudes and experiences. Future aspirations for sexual and intimate relationships were largely influenced by young people's broader plans for their education and transition into adulthood.

Age‐appropriate and personally relevant forms of SRE need to be developed which focus on the various factors influencing relationships at different points in time for groups of young people.

Contextualising young people's sexual and intimate relationships in terms of the specific factors influencing attitudes, experiences in the past and present, together with future aspirations can usefully inform the development of SRE programmes.

In recent years, due to fast growth of Kabul city in Afghanistan, newest construction has been taking place in unplanned ways and entailed illegal squatting on land and mountains. Such unplanned urban expansion, without any type of urban infrastructure and insufficient drainage systems, has created many problems including an increasing number of urban floods. Recent reports show that the number of female victims is higher than that of males affected by floods. First, this chapter highlights the country overview of the disaster and vulnerability, and then particularly focus on the vulnerability factors of urban women who are affected by floods and living in Kabul city. Data for this study were obtained through focus group discussions with urban women, and men and face-to-face interviews with governmental and non-governmental organizations (GOs-NGOs) at the local as well as national levels in Afghanistan. Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) was used to map the relationship among factors, and to stratify factors according to their importance. Findings show that the lack of education on disaster management and the lack of protective measures play an important role in increasing women’s vulnerability during disasters. Furthermore, the study finds that cultural issues represent a dominant vulnerability factor which affect women. The comparative results show that the women affected by the cultural norms during the flood are less important than the post-disaster. The study also found that the perception regarding these cultural norms and how they affect women’s behaviour during disasters differs between men and women. This chapter concluded some policy recommendations towards resilient livelihoods.

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of social suffering among a non-random sample of Canadian women working in socially and economically marginalized “frontline” service occupations. Participants identified a number of health concerns that they link to the everyday suffering they endure – i.e. feeling inadequate, incompetent, lonely, self-conscious, disenfranchised or dissatisfied. The complex etiology of these women's suffering bars many from finding appropriate health care. As a result, there are health disparities among our vulnerable populations. While they often articulated a desire for alternative/complementary care, the Canadian health care system does not currently fund these services and many of the women are unable to afford the out-of-pocket costs.

This paper reports on a pilot project that helps women offenders and other women with multiple needs to access mental health care. The paper aims to increase understanding of the mental health needs of these women and the barriers they face in accessing and sustaining engagement with appropriate care.

Key principles and early findings are presented from the partnership project based in Anawim Women's Centre, in which a mental health nurse (MHN) is seconded to the centre one day a week. These are presented in light of research relating to the mental health needs of vulnerable women.

Early findings suggest mental health needs are largely trauma‐based and co‐occurring substance misuse problems are common. The MHN negotiated a pathway into secondary care with community mental health team managers but concerns continue about the ability of primary care services to meet the complex needs of these women. Principles for working with this group include: provision in a women‐only space; a focus on engagement; flexibility; holistic support and empowering women and voluntary sector staff.

Findings are based on eight months of one pilot project in which 22 women were seen.

Practical implications are outlined for commissioners and service managers of mental health care services for vulnerable women.

Research and experience suggest that women with multiple problems can struggle to engage with traditionally structured services and fail to access the holistic support they need. This paper increases understanding of this problem and suggests how these women might be better supported.

Informed by primary interviews and observational research conducted by the authors with women prisoners in Northern Ireland, this article focuses on prison as an institutional manifestation of women’s powerlessness and vulnerability, particularly those enduring mental ill‐health. It contextualises their experiences within continua of violence and ‘unsafety’. It also considers official responses to critical inspection reports and those of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission based on the authors’ research findings. Finally, the primary research demonstrates that three decades on from publication the first critical analyses of women’s imprisonment, the conditions of gendered marginalisation, medicalisation and punishment remain. This is brought into stark relief in the punitive regimes imposed on those most vulnerable through mental ill‐health.