This review report discusses the prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV), including its forms and drivers in South Sudan.Key takeaways:
- Women and girls in South Sudan face multiple forms of violence across their life course and in multiple settings, with serious impacts on health and well-being.
- Women and girls in South Sudan experience high levels of violence.
- Groups who experience intersecting inequalities are at heightened risk of violence (e.g., adolescent girls, women and girls with disabilities, refugees and internally displaced people, commercial sex workers, and widows).
- Multiple, overlapping drivers cause VAWG in South Sudan.
- Several programmatic approaches have been used to prevent VAWG in South Sudan (this query mapped sixteen programmes using prevention approaches).
- Promising examples also exist of GBV prevention and risk mitigation being mainstreamed into other sectors, for example, education, social protection, governance and accountability, and
water, sanitation and hygiene. - Most prevention interventions have not been rigorously evaluated, are relatively small- scale and have few documented lessons, possibly reflecting the limited funding. However, there are programmes with good evidence of impact, such as Communities Care, which are in the process of moving to scale-up.
- Other key considerations for future programmes include: the need to design and adapt programmes to prevent violence against diverse groups of women and girls; the value of adaptive programming given the rapidly changing context in South Sudan; the importance of comprehensive approaches which combine prevention with survivor-centred services; and regular coordination, communication and learning at both national and field level. Challenges to implementing GBV programming in South Sudan include inter-communal conflict, drought, economic crises and inflationary pressures, and natural disasters.