Young People, Violence and Strategic Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa

This edited volume offers a rich collection of up-to-date research and critical scholarship from various African institutions on incidents of youth violence, intervention and prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. It integrates thinking, evidence, responses, and debates relating to this topic, laying the basis for fresh insights and innovative strategies. The chapters capture a spectrum of pertinent issues such as economic hardship, lockdowns, sexual and reproductive health, pregnancy, online sexual harassment, xenophobic violence, and micro-aggressions in school contexts, and present guidelines on how countries might learn from successful interventions recently implemented. They explore young people's access to familial and community resources, state-sponsored initiatives, peer counselling, youth-friendly services, and other relevant structures. Thus, among other things, this volume stimulates further debate on what is driving violence in different African contexts-specifically, how intersectional identities create vulnerabilities to violence-and influences ways of dealing with the issue.

This interdisciplinary and cross-cutting volume serves as a vital resource for experts at universities, in international organisations, civil society groups and intergovernmental organisations who wish to both analyse and take action to address and prevent the type of violence that currently afflicts young people sub-Saharan Africa today.

Auteur

Kammila Naidoo, PhD, is a Professor of Sociology who currently works in the area of family dynamics and gender-based violence. Her Ph.D, which she completed at the University of Manchester, UK, focused on women's experiences of poverty, childbearing, and marital instability. She has over the past 20 years supervised to completion 20 Ph.D theses, 28 MA dissertations and 36 Honours projects on topics linked to gender, politics, health and sexuality and has externally examined a similar number of projects. Dr. Naidoo has published widely in local and international journals, highlighting familial crises, crisis-led transitions, contradictions between formal rights and lived realities, and persistent gender discriminations. She has completed four special issues of journals; the last one published (with Oluwafemi Adeagbo and Melanie Pleaner as co-editors) in September 2019, was entitled, 'Adolescence, Sexuality and Reproductive Health in Sub-SaharanAfrica'. She is interested in community-based interventions as a key strategy to end the scourge of violence against women in African countries. Oluwafemi Adeagbo, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health at the University of Iowa College of Public Health in the United States. Dr Adeagbo is an applied socio-behavioral scientist with extensive research experience working collaboratively with local and international institutions on HIV-related research. He has conducted research with adolescents, youth, and older people. He has explored the impact of class, race, gender, education, violence, substance use, employment status, and other related factors on individual health over time. His research activities have focused on global health, stigma reduction interventions, telehealth interventions, HIV treatment and prevention, sexual and gender minority health, implementation science and evaluation of interventions. He was recently recognized by the African Academy of Science (2021) and the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) (2019) for his scientific contributions including his recent authored book: The Dynamics and Complexities of Interracial Gay Families in South Africa: A New Frontier (Springer, 2019). Xiaoming Li, PhD, is Professor and Endowed Chair of clinical translational research and the Director for the SmartState Center for Healthcare Quality at the Arnold School of Public Health in the University of South Carolina. Dr. Li's research interests include development, delivery and evaluation of culturally appropriate best practices in areas of mental health, and HIV/AIDS behavioral prevention interventions in both domestic and international settings. His areas of research include resilience-based psychosocial interventions, HIV disclosure, stigma reduction, mental health, and HIV treatment and care. He has also participated in HIV-related research in Namibia, Vietnam, India, Mexico, Zambia, Nigeria, and the Bahamas. Since 2019, Dr. Li has distinguished himself as one of the world's most active authors in AIDS-related stigma and discrimination and has been elected Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science. Dr. Li is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.