Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) is a 9-years research program that explores the role of social norms around adolescents’ well being with a focus on adolescent girls. Adolescence is critical to development, but young people must be supported and empowered to reach their full potential. This research aims to identify what interventions, at which phase of life and sequence work best to maximize their capabilities and shape their own futures.
Adolescent girls working in the adult entertainment sector (AES) are amongst the most vulnerable adolescent populations. Due to huge income differences, girls go back to AES after rehabilitation. The research uses qualitative methods and ethnography to explore such underlying gendered norms that drive adolescent girls into commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), impact on their psychosocial wellbeing, education and learning prospectus and inter linkages between internal and international trafficking. Additional new contribution will be looking at girls who are in street-based prostitution, a population unreached by formal research and those working in guest houses, who are less accessible.
‘Advancing Learning and Innovation on Gender Norms’ (ALIGN) is a digital platform and community of practice for sharing knowledge and innovation on gender norms, with a focus on adolescents and young adults.
As part of the ALIGN project, a ‘History and Change’ series seeks to put together and draw lessons from personal narratives of change and resistance in gender norms, expectations and behaviours as these play out against a backdrop of broader social, economic and political processes in selected countries.
The research uptake strategy mainly deals with filling up the gap in the unfinished task of SLRC. It will also map out new policy, power and knowledge contexts and co-construct research evidence and solution. It will help understand what knowledge evidence would be useful for the stakeholders and to help in the design of the upcoming research work that SLRC has targeted to do.