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On 21 January 2017, millions of people across the globe stood up to demand that women's and girls' rights be respected and guaranteed. This call for global women's rights is especially critical at a time when the number of displaced persons totals 63.5 million—representing the highest global prevalence of displaced persons that the world has witnessed since World War II.1 Declining government stability and diminishing wealth are overwhelmingly viewed as the primary drivers of protracted and new conflicts that fuel such large-scale displacement. Yet, nearly a decade of research indicates that the status of women is also a critical predictor of a nation's security, and that women's rights must be safeguarded both in response to conflicts as well as an integral strategy towards preventing future humanitarian crises.2 This includes gender equity in educational attainment, political representation, economic empowerment, and safety in public and within the privacy of their homes.
While equality and violence against women and girls has received high-level attention within global platforms, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,3 gaps remain regarding research on effective programmes that can reduce and prevent such violence from taking place. One in three women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence from a male partner (ie, intimate partner violence, hereafter IPV) at some point in their lifetime, and the health consequences have been extensively documented.4 In conflict-affected settings, IPV levels are higher, with lifetime prevalence estimates ranging from 20% to 59% within select conflict-affected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.5 However, research and programmatic attention aiming to combat IPV in conflict settings are sparse. This is in part due to urgency in addressing basic health issues and physical infrastructure,6 donor and media prioritisation of sexual violence as a weapon of war without adequate attention to IPV, and logistical …