There is evidence that violence against women and men is an indirect factor for increased HIV risk. It is a barrier to uptake of HIV services and poor treatment adherence and response, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where the epidemics overlap. Sexual violence is a known direct risk factor for HIV transmission both in children and adults.
Focussing on four main areas of GBV, we aim to address the HIV and Gender Based Violence (GBV) dual pandemic:
- Violence against children – community prevention programs and post rape care services
- Violence Against Women – intimate partner violence prevention and response programs within the community and at facility level
- Post rape care services to all sexual violence survivors
- Violence prevention and response services to the Key Populations including Men who have sex with Men, Female Sex Workers and People who use and Inject Drugs
We provide prevention and response services to survivors of violence:
- Generate local evidence on GBV prevention and response through operational research and evaluation of innovative models
- Provide technical assistance to the Government and partners for the development and institutionalisation of policies and standards for delivery of GBV services
- Facilitate scale up of comprehensive GBV services at LVCT Health sites and Public health facilities
In 2017, we supported 66 public health facilities to deliver the nationally recommended comprehensive post violence services. 32,275 Key and Priority Populations were screened for violence and offered psychosocial support, out of which 7,403 were HIV positive. We trained 133 health service providers using the national training curriculum for managing survivors of violence, 81 County Health Records Information Officers (HRIO) on internationally recognised District Health Information Systems (DHIS2) data management and 375 non-medical service providers were trained/sensitised on GBV response (83 County law enforcers, 142 county duty bearers, 88 National Police Service Officers, and 62 community policing members).