Authors: Tania de Villiers [1] & Naeemah Abrahams [2]
- University of Cape Town (Division of Nursing and Midwifery, Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences).
- South African Medical Research Council (Division of Gender and Health Research Unit)
Sexual violence against women and girls remains a major public health issue globally. University environments, including residences, have been identified as communities at risk for sexual violence. Reports of sexual assaults have been made at many South African Universities, but prevention initiatives and appropriate responses to these reports is not evident. There is a history of poor responses, with only ad-hoc responses from university management during periods of increased reporting and media attention. More recently the fees must fall activism raised the issue of sexual violence again, and provided an opportunity to work with the University community to initiate prevention of sexual violence within Higher Education settings.
The main outcome and contribution of this study is to understand the feasibility of the MWC in university settings, in particular in male residences, as a primary prevention intervention. This will be done with a pilot testing process with male students at two universities in the Western Cape. The One man can intervention as well as the Men with Conscience Intervention were developed in South Africa with male students who reside in university residences and this makes it a context-specific intervention. Few primary prevention interventions for this high-risk population are available for testing and none have been tested in this setting.
To date
The study has been set up and ethical clearance has been granted after a 15 month process. Approval to do the study in the residences was a long process but by Feb 2020 two university management teams have given approval and the project team was ready to start in March 2020, when the COVID lock down came into effect in South Africa. Universities in South Africa have remained closed and is unlikely to open during the first semester of 2021. However, we are exploring the possibility of online intervention delivery, so planning and discussions are currently underway.
