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The last half century has seen a dramatic increase in the number of conflicts and complex emergencies. Most have occurred in settings where conflict further weakened already inadequate national health, educational and other public services. The growth in frequency of conflicts and the number of people affected by them has prompted a strong commitment to emergency relief in the acute phase of crises but, by comparison, interest in post-conflict transition to recovery and reconstruction has been much more limited in both vision and scope.

Rates of HIV transmission are often presumed to increase in situations of violent conflict, due to high levels of sexual violence, poverty and displacement which create a high risk environment for the spread of HIV. Claims of a link between sexual violence and HIV infection have been supported by prevalence data amongst specific groups who suffered a high incidence of violence during war time.

Epidemiological analysis and mathematical modelling have demonstrated the significance of commercial sex and high-risk behaviours as factors in the widespread transmission of HIV. This has frequently singled out commercial sex-workers as a focal point of the spread of the epidemic. Research in the social sciences has spotlighted the multifaceted complexities of participants in sex work settings, describing their mobility, particular vulnerabilities and heterogeneities.

There is emerging evidence of how conflicts and disasters may lead to sex being sold or exchanged for accommodation, protection, food, gifts and other items or services. This can be attributed to many factors, including high levels of poverty, lack of livelihood opportunities, separation of families, breakdown in community support mechanisms and an increase in gender-based violence (GBV). Yet programmes addressing HIV and sex work in humanitarian settings are often poorly developed.

Early in the 1990s, large numbers of commercial blood donors in rural central China, most notably in Henan Province, were infected with HIV. According to conservative estimates released by the provincial government, more than 30,000 people in this province alone were infected.

Information about HIV prevention and mitigation must be integrated into education responses to emergencies to help ensure that learners and their teachers remain supported and safe. Education can offer one of the points of entry for health, protection and other sectors working on HIV prevention and response and facilitating referral to essential services for those affected by HIV.

ASCI Research Hub ASCI Full Report ASCI Executive Summary The ASCI Research Reports listed below can be found at: http://asci.researchhub.ssrc.org/working-papers/ The Police and HIV/AIDS: A Literature Review Hilary Pearce Current Trends and Issues in Research on HIV/AIDS and Police Forces…

There are many different stakeholders to whom an organisation is accountable. Sadly, accountability to donors, to the general public, to governing bodies and to headquarters (in the case of field offices) can easily ‘squeeze out’ accountability to affected populations unless active efforts are made to uphold it. Although all operations have financial or legal accountability requirements, there is no such obligation for accountability towards disaster-affected persons.

Voluntary repatriation has long been seen as the foremost durable solution to forced displacement and the solution that would benefit the greatest number of refugees. This perspective assumes that, once the original cause of flight is redressed, refugees will not only still identify with their homeland but also want to return. These assumptions are challenged, however, by many of the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in Tamil Nadu, India.

Following the surge of violence in 2004, more than 2.4 million men, women and children in Darfur were displaced. Several hundred thousand of them fled to the southern Darfur town of Gereida, effectively tripling its population. While living in a camp setting in Gereida, these IDPs (internally displaced persons) had access to a government-run hospital that offered only minimal, often poor-quality reproductive health (RH) services, for a prohibitively high fee.