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CATEGORY/THEME: Meeting the Goals of the HIV/AIDS National Prevention Strategy/Etiology
TITLE: The Effect of Multiple Violence Exposures and Sexual Health Risk Outcomes: A Nationally Representative Study from Kenya
ABSTRACT BODY:
Introduction and Methods: This submission uses data from the 2010 Kenya Violence against Children Study (VACS), the first national survey of violence against both female and male children in Kenya. Guided by an in-country Technical Working Group, VACS is a nationally representative household survey of 1,306 females and 1,622 males 13 to 24 years of age.
VACS was designed to yield lifetime and current estimates of sexual, physical, and emotional violence and the association of such violence with HIV/STD transmission risk and STD symptoms. Sexual violence, in particular, is associated with increased sexual health risks, including HIV/AIDS and STD transmission.
Results: VACS findings indicate that violence against children is a serious problem in Kenya. Levels of violence prior to age 18 as reported by 18 to 24 year olds indicate that prior to age 18: 32% of females and 18% of males experienced sexual violence; 66% of females and 73% of males experienced physical violence; and 26% of females and 32% of males experienced emotional violence.
However, although service providers most often treat and seek to prevent sexual violence, physical violence and emotional violence separately using distinct intervention models, VACS illuminates that children often face co-occurrence of these three types of violence exposure.
For example, among 18 to 24 year olds, 13% of females and 9% of males experienced sexual, physical and emotional violence prior to age 18. Twelve percent of females and 7% of males experienced physical violence and sexual violence. Only 6% of females and 1% of males experienced sexual violence prior to age 18 without reporting physical or emotional violence.
Examining these unique profiles of exposure allows for observation of the ways in which sexual, physical and emotional violence co-occur during childhood and be linked to distinct sexual health risk outcomes. Initial analysis indicates that females who experienced sexual violence prior to age 18 were more likely to have multiple sex partners in the past 12 months than those females who did not experience sexual violence prior to age 18; as well, males aged 13 to 17 were more likely to report symptoms consistent with an STD diagnosis than those males who did not experience sexual violence in the past 12 months.
Conclusions: The proposed submission will highlight how compounded risk, through exposure to multiple forms of violence during childhood, may be linked to sexual health risks in a nationally representative study. With broad ownership of the study from the Government of Kenya, such research has important implications for the design of increasingly effective HIV/STD service delivery for those children who continue to experience violence.