Gamechangers/Yilamu Mfundzi Ngcii Ngami

Situation or Background
In Eswatini, 1 in 3 young women report experiencing some form of sexual violence (attempted unwanted intercourse, unwanted touching, or coercive or forced sex) before the age of 18. More recently, our team found that 60% of female students at the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) has experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault in their lifetime, and 90% have experienced unwanted sexual comments from men in public in the previous 12 months.

Our Goal or What We’re Doing
After conducting the first campus-wide survey of sexual assault ever conducted at a University in sub-Saharan Africa, the team will pilot test an adaptation of the individual-level feminist resistance-style sexual assault intervention for female university students at the University of Eswantini. A similar approach has been found to reduce experiences of sexual assault among female students in North America by up to half.

Approach or Methodology
GameChangers was adapted from the Enhanced Assess Acknowledge Act (EAAA) program, which has been shown to reduce college women’s risk of experiencing sexual assault by 50%.

Impact and What We’re Learning
Twenty-three women completed the GameChangers intervention with pre- and post-test self-report surveys to assess potential effectiveness. At the completion of the program participants were significantly more likely to report that they felt ‘very comfortable’ discussing condoms with a partner. We also found that women were significantly more likely to reject victim blaming rape myths. In baseline data (n=200) from the GameChangers pilot, we found that women with higher levels of sexual self-efficacy were significantly more likely to have spoken to a health-care provider (HCP) about HIV in the previous 6 months, and that this effect was especially strong for women who had experienced gender based violence in the previous 12 months.