Paper long abstract:

A recent national survey found extremely high rates of gender-based violence (GBV) among women in Kyrgyzstan. Although evidence suggests that substance-involved women may be at even greater risk of GBV, there are no evidence-based screening and brief interventions that have been developed to document and redress violence among high-risk women in Kyrgyzstan. This study aimed to document the prevalence of GBV among substance-involved women, and to adapt and test the feasibility and preliminary effects of a two-session evidence-based intervention, WINGS, in two harm reduction non-governmental organizations in Kyrgyzstan. The core components of the brief intervention included psycho-education on GBV, a GBV screening tool based on the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2) as well as social support enhancement, service linkage, safety planning, goal setting, and optional HIV testing and counseling. In the first year of the project, of the 78 women eligible for the study, 73 women participated in the study, and 66 women returned for the 3-month post-intervention follow-up assessment. At baseline, 73% of women in the sample reported exposure to physical or sexual IPV victimization, and 60% reported physical or sexual GBV in the past year. Analyses also indicated high prevalence of sex trading among the sample, and emerging evidence suggests that women who engage in sex trading may be even more likely to report exposure to GBV. Thus, we engaged in exploratory analyses, examining the prevalence of GBV among the sub-sample of women reporting engagement in sex trading, and the association between engagement in sex trading and GBV, using the baseline data. Findings suggest the feasibility and promising effects of a brief intervention to redress violence, and a need for more research on IPV among women who engage in sex trading.