On the record: Professor Rachel Jewkes

Abstract

Chandré Gould speaks to Professor Rachel Jewkes, Director of the Gender and Health Unit of the Medical Research Council and a member of the newly formed National Council on Gender-Based Violence.
Professor Rachel Jewkes and her colleagues at the Gender and Health Unit have undertaken foundational research on gender-based violence in South Africa for many years; most recently this includes research conducted to assess the levels of rape perpetration in South Africa,1 and a national study of child and female homicide. The unit has also developed and tested the South African version of the Stepping Stones programme that was shown to be effective in changing men’s sexual risk-taking behaviour and ‘reduced their use of violence’, while also reducing sexually transmitted infections in women.