Browsing by Author "Essack, Zaynab."
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Item Battered, dejected, ejected and rejected: the rights of HIV positive women to be protected from violence in Eswatini.(2020) Mavundla, Simangele Daisy.; Strode, Ann Elaine.; Essack, Zaynab.Eswatini has, as of 2018, the highest prevalence of HIV and AIDS in the world. The prevalence has continued to rise, climbing from 21 per cent of the population in 2016 to over 27 per cent in 2018. Violence against women (VAW) is also on the increase, attributed to the prevalence of gender inequality in the country. Research has shown a viable link between HIV and VAW. This is because women are most often powerless and have no voice, agency or control over their lives and bodies. Due to gender inequality, women may be unable to negotiate condom use with their husbands or partners. Women's refusal of males' sexual advances often leads to their violation, underscoring the link between VAW and HIV and AIDS. However, in Eswatini, the implications of this link have not been adequately investigated; hence, the need to investigate women's experiences of VAW to find out how well the legal and policy frameworks of Eswatini respond to VAW. The study answers the following essential questions: What are the experiences of women living with HIV (WLH) regarding violence? Is the Eswatini legal and policy framework cognisant of the nexus between VAW and HIV? How does the legal framework protect HIV positive women from VAW and its consequences in light of international law? This study found that violence against HIV positive women was multifaceted and involved a wide range of perpetrators. As such, WLH experienced many forms of violence, including stigma and discrimination. Perpetrators of violence against WLH originated from the home front – (private sphere) and then were found in the public sphere. Intimate partners, and family members, as well as community members and healthcare workers, were implicated in violating WLH in one way or another. The findings of this study confirmed that violence and HIV were inextricably interconnected at many levels and that legal remedies were inadequate, to the extent that women did not generally rely on them. Some of the inadequacies included the fact that the laws on marital and cohabiting relationships offered little protection in conflict with the provision in the Constitution provides that 'women have the right to equal treatment with men'. This study argues that Eswatini's social context provides fertile ground for HIV and VAW and their interaction to thrive. It further contends that violence against WLH is a public health concern requiring a public health response. It concludes that violence against WLH is indeed a human rights violation, which requires a human rights response.Item An empirical study of standards of prevention in South African HIV vaccine trials: Norms, perspectives and practices.(2017-06-08) Essack, Zaynab.and sponsors are required to help HIV vaccine trial participants remain HIVuninfected by ensuring access to HIV risk-reduction interventions, termed the standard of prevention. Ethics guidelines for biomedical HIV prevention trials make a range of recommendations on the standard of prevention, including that participants should be provided with ‘state-of-the-art’ prevention interventions; what should be declared in protocols and informed consent documents; and about how decisions should be made. Recommendations in these guidelines have been intensely debated, and argued to be infeasible and impractical. This qualitative study aimed to identify standard of prevention decision-making and implementation practices at five South African trial sites, explore whether practices meet guideline recommendations, and discuss implications for practices and ethics guidelines. Stakeholders’ perspectives on key recommendations in ethics guidelines were also explored. Practices were examined through a review of site documents and interviews with key research stakeholders. Despite concerns in the literature that guidelines establish ideals that cannot be achieved in practice, this study found high concordance between practices and guideline recommendations. In some instances, site practices exceeded recommendations in guidelines. Practices deviated most from guidelines with regard to ‘negotiating’ standards of prevention packages, the description of prevention plans in protocols and informed consent forms, and the ethical review of monitoring plans. The ‘state-of-the-art’ recommendation was argued as being ‘in the eye of the beholder’ and considered too vague, too absolute and as requiring localisation. The requirement for stakeholder consultation on the evolving standard of prevention was also questioned in terms of who would constitute relevant stakeholders, the difficulties with achieving consensus, and the nature of the consultation process. Stakeholders endorsed ethics requirements that new tools be added to the prevention package when they are scientifically validated and approved by regulatory authorities. In addition, they argued that public health sector availability of the intervention and the phase of the trial also be considered. Funding restrictions, power inequalities, provider promotion of interventions and cultural dynamics, among other complexities were identified as influencing standards of prevention decision-making and/or implementation. Recommendations are made for strengthened practices and improvements to guidelines so that they address empirically identified complexities.Item The social geographies of school-related gender-based violence on children’s school journeys in rural KwaZulu-Natal.(2022) Khumalo, Ayanda Cynthia.; Ngidi, Ndumiso Daluxolo.; Essack, Zaynab.This study examined the social geographies of school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) on children’s journeys to and from school (hereafter, school journeys). In particular, the study explored the spaces and places identified by primary school children as the social geographies of SRGBV on their school journeys. Moreover, the study investigated how primary school children negotiated their spatial safety when navigating their school journeys. Twenty primary schoolchildren, aged between 10-12 years and attending Grades 5-7, were purposively recruited from one resource-poor rural community in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, in South Africa (SA). The study recruited only primary schoolchildren who walked without adult supervision for at least five kilometres to and from school. Data was generated using participatory visual methodologies, which involved the use of photovoice and participatory mapping. These visual data were supplemented by four focus group discussions (FGD). Data analysis occurred in two layers. The first layer involved the analysis of visual artefacts and the explanations provided by the participants during the FGD. The second layer involved thematic and visual data analysis of all the data generated. Conceptually, the study was guided by both the feminist geographies and the broadly conceived children’s geographies frames of thinking. Feminist geographies provided a lens for understanding how gender shaped primary school children’s understandings and experiences of SRGBV on their school journey. On the other hand, children’s geographies provided a frame for understanding the sociocultural meanings children attached to their engagement with both their social geographies and the people they interacted with across space/place. Theoretically, the analysis was informed by the defensible space theory, which analysed how and why certain social geographies exposed primary school children to gender-based violence (GBV). Data analysis revealed a plethora of social geographies that rendered participants vulnerable to GBV on their school journeys. These geographies included dense bushes, taverns, and other public and economic spaces such as tuckshops in and around the community. Moreover, since these children walked to school without adult supervision, they reported a sense of fear and terror in navigating unsafe social geographies in their community. Finally, while they feared walking to school, participants demonstrated agency in negotiating their spatial safety by drawing from the available community and interpersonal resources. The use of participatory visual methods offered a unique opportunity to see how primary school children constructed and understood the social geographies of their school journeys, and how in these spaces, forms of GBV occurred.Item Stereotype activation and university access programmes : preparing students with one hand and holding them back with the other?(2008) Essack, Zaynab.; Durrheim, Kevin Locksley.A generally untested assumption within the stereotype threat literature is that it is only those individuals who are highly identified with a domain who will be susceptible to stereotype threat. Further, many of the studies on stereotype threat have been confined to artificial laboratory settings and have been conducted on American samples. The current study aimed to develop a measure of domain-identification in order to test this central assumption of stereotype threat theory on a sample of students in a humanities access programme in a South African university. Results indicate that the experience of stereotype threat varies with respect to the combination of 1) the degree of domain-identification, and 2) the degree to which students are aware of negative domain-relevant stereotypes. That is, students who were highly domain-identified and were highly or moderately aware of negative stereotypes performed worse than highly domain-identified individuals who had low levels of awareness of others negative stereotypes about their in-group.Item Understanding constraints and enablers of turnaround time for ethics review(2019) Mrisho, Mwifadhi.; Essack, Zaynab.Background Independent ethics review is one of the fundamental principles of research ethics. The body of literature has documented increasing bureaucratic delays associated with ethics review, which has impacted the start of research activities. This study aimed to determine the extent of variability in turnaround times for protocol review among different institutional review boards (IRBs) within Tanzania. It also assessed the challenges and experiences of submitting and reviewing protocols after introducing the tablet PC, from the perspectives of Ifakara Health Institute IRB (IHI-IRB) members and investigators. Methods This cross-sectional study employed a mixed-methods approach which consisted of qualitative and quantitative approaches. The quantitative data were obtained retrospectively from databases of seven selected IRBs in Tanzania. Purposive sampling was used to select seven IRBs for inclusion in the study. Seven IRB secretaries and their assistants from five institutions were interviewed to respond to the research questions. In addition, 19 in-depth interviews were conducted with IRB members and investigators to explore their experiences of using tablet PCs in reviewing protocols and in submitting electronic proposals, respectively. This study was conducted in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. Quantitative secondary data were analysed using Stata software (quantitative data analysis software, version 10). Qualitative data were categorised in an Excel spreadsheet and analysed using thematic analysis. Results The median time for ethics review across the visited sites was 32 days and ranged from 1 to 396 days. Qualitative results found that eleven thematic issues emerged from in-depth interviews with IRB members and the secretariat in the visited study areas. Generally, looking into the procedures for submission of protocols to the secretariat of the IRB, these were more or less the same across IRB institutions in Tanzania. However, investigators sometimes failed to adhere to the submission checklist and guidelines which resulted in delays in the timeous review of protocols. Most of the IRB members and investigators preferred electronic submission for its ease of use and reduced burdens associated with paper-based submissions, such as printing, distribution and misplacing of protocols. Conclusion Data from this study suggest that there is an urgent need to address the issues raised in order to improve the turnaround time of protocol review in Tanzania. Investigators should adhere to the submission checklist and guidelines to avoid delays in the ethics approval process. Ethics review boards need to invest in technology and system strengthening to facilitate timeous processing of ethics applications.