Comparing four service delivery models for adolescent girls and young women through the Girl Power' study: Protocol for a multisite quasi-experimental cohort study

In sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) face a range of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) challenges. Clinical, behavioural and structural interventions have each reduced these risks and improved health outcomes. However, combinations of these interventions have not been compared with each other or with no intervention at all. The Girl Power' study is designed to systematically make these comparisons. Methods and analysis Four comparable health facilities in Malawi and South Africa (n=8) were selected and assigned to one of the following models of care: (1) Standard of care: AGYW can receive family planning, HIV testing and counselling (HTC), and sexually transmitted infection (STI) syndromic management in three separate locations with three separate queues with the general population. No youth-friendly spaces, clinical modifications or trainings are offered, (2) Youth-Friendly Health Services (YFHS): AGYW are meant to receive integrated family planning, HTC and STI services in dedicated youth spaces with youth-friendly modifications and providers trained in YFHS, (3) YFHS+behavioural intervention (BI): In addition to YFHS, AGYW can attend 12 monthly theory-driven, facilitator-led, interactive sessions on health, finance and relationships, (4) YFHS+BI+conditional cash transfer (CCT): in addition to YFHS and BI, AGYW receive up to 12 CCTs conditional on monthly BI session attendance. At each clinic, 250 AGYW 15-24 years old (n=2000 total) will be consented, enrolled and followed for 1 year. Each participant will complete a behavioural survey at enrolment, 6 months and 12 months. All clinical, behavioural and CCT services will be captured. Outcomes of interest include uptake of each package element and reduction in HIV risk behaviours. A qualitative substudy will be conducted. Ethics/dissemination This study has received ethical approval from the University of North Carolina Institutional Review Board, the University of Cape Town Human Research Ethics Committee and Malawi's National Health Sciences Research Committee. Study plans, processes and findings will be disseminated to stakeholders, in peer-reviewed journals and at conferences

A future without forgiveness: beyond reconciliation in transitional justice

This article questions the promotion of reconciliation in transitional justice contexts. The article puts forward a critique of reconciliation in practice and questions mainstream definitions of reconciliation. The principle that these forms of reconciliation are desirable is also questioned. It is argued that examples of genuine reconciliation are difficult to find, that the promotion of reconciliation is frequently emphasised at the expense of substantive societal change, that emphasis on reconciliation (narrowly defined) risks taking agency away from those affected by conflict and that emphasis on reconciliation may obscure injustice and may promote acceptance of the status quo. The article suggests that reconciliation is not a necessary condition of, and should be de-emphasised in, transitional justice and, if it is promoted at all, that a different, less prescriptive notion of reconciliation is necessary

No Reconciliation without Redress: Articulating political demands in post-transitional South Africa

This article investigates the articulation of political demands by Khulumani, a South African a victim support group. The analysis of their demands is situated in the context of their response to the shortcomings of the TRC and the failures of the South African government to live up to their promises and commitments on reparation for victims of gross human rights abuses under apartheid. The article draws on a post-structuralist approach to discourse analysis, in particular on the work of Laclau and Ranci�re, to analyse the processes through which demands appear on the political stage and are articulated in response to other political projects. Concretely it traces out the change from a discourse of ?reconciliation? to one of ?redress?, showing how the latter opens up a new horizon of political imagination and action

Victimology in transitional justice:Victimhood, innocence and hierarchy

Although addressing the needs of victims is increasingly proffered as the key rationale for transitional justice, serious critical discussion on the political and social construction of victimhood is only tentatively emerging in the field. Drawing from Anglo-American victimology, the first part of this paper suggests that victims of crime as a category are often perceived as the mirror opposite of perpetrators of crime. It suggests that such a perspective narrows the notion of victims’ rights or needs so they become intrinsically linked to the punishment of perpetrators; that victims and perpetrators are reified and distinct categories; and that ‘true’ victim status demands innocence. The second part of the paper takes these insights and applies them to the context of transitional justice. In particular, it questions the notion of ‘innocence’ as a prerequisite for victim recognition and explores the ways in which victims and perpetrators are not always easily identified as distinct categories in conflicted or transitional societies. The paper concludes that incorporating blame in the calibration of human suffering results in the morally corrosive language of a ‘hierarchy of victims’

Victims and Transitional Justice: Voice, Agency and Blame

This article explores the construction of victimhood in transitional societies. Drawn from fieldwork in a dozen jurisdictions as well as elements of criminological, feminist, sociological, philosophical and postcolonial literature, the article focuses in particular on how victimhood is interpreted and acted upon in transitional contexts. It explores the ways in which victims’ voice and agency are realised, impeded or in some cases co-opted in transitional justice. It also examines the role of blame in the construction of victimhood. In particular, it focuses upon the ways in which the importance of blame may render victimhood contingent upon ‘blamelessness’, encourage hierarchies between deserving and undeserving victims and require the reification of blameworthy perpetrators. The article concludes by suggesting that the increased voice and agency associated with the deployment of rights discourses by victims comes at a price – a willingness to acknowledge the rights and humanity of the ‘other’ and to be subject to the same respectful critical inquiry as other social and political actors in a post-conflict society