Girls and women are at the centre of the AIDS response. Factors including age, ethnicity, gender inequities, disability, sexual orientation, profession and socioeconomic status compound to influence girls’ and women’s ability to protect themselves from HIV. Programming efforts must recognize the complexity of the everyday lives of girls and women as they mature and grow and build the response around their needs.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign coordinated by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and used by activists around the world as an organizing strategy to call for the elimination of all forms of gender-based violence. The core 16 Days campaign takes place every year between November 25 and December 10 and is run by more than 6,000 organizations in 187 countries.

Since its inception, Project SOAR has conducted 70 activities in 21 countries. This supplement features findings from select activities that cover all three pillars of the project: research, research utilization, and capacity strengthening. The papers are organized by the following topics: