Preliminary Effects of a Syndemic-Focused Brief Intervention to Reduce Gender-Based Violence among Women with a History of Sex Trading and Substance Use.

This article examines the preliminary effects of the Women Initiating New Goals for Safety (WINGS) of Hope intervention, a culturally adapted two-session gender-based violence (GBV) screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) program, among women with a history of sex trading and substance use in Kyrgyzstan. In a pre–post study of 108 women reporting lifetime sex trading, significant reductions were observed in physical, sexual, and emotional intimate partner violence (IPV) and nonintimate partner violence (nIPV) three months postintervention, while no significant changes occurred in substance use or service utilization. The findings suggest that brief, community-based GBV interventions may effectively reduce violence among this vulnerable population in lower-resource settings, though further research with larger samples and experimental designs is needed to confirm and refine these results.