The Right to Choose: Increasing migrant girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and rights in Colombia

This project aims to redress inequalities in decision-making power for adolescent migrant girls as a group that has been historically marginalised and excluded from participating in sexual and reproductive healthcare. This postdoctoral fellowship will consolidate my PhD and prepare me for the next stage of my career. With this in mind, this fellowship has three main objectives: 1. Improve Publication Record To produce key publications to build a strong academic profile, including: Transforming my thesis into a monograph of approximately 200 pages for a series (e.g., Research in Comparative and Global Social Policy with Bristol University Press), presenting theoretical and empirical findings on autonomy in young people’s SRHR in humanitarian crises. Chapter 1 will highlight the significance of this research. It will introduce the reader to the issue of Venezuelan migration to Colombia and the relevance of this case study to other humanitarian crises. Chapter 2 will outline the theoretical advancements in autonomy and youth decision-making. Chapters 3-5 will articulate three critiques of current policy design and service delivery, alongside evidence from adolescents’ lived experiences. Chapter 6 will present the co-designed recommendations for policy design and service delivery, while Chapter 7 will contemplate the implications for future research and the broader sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) agenda. Publishing at least two articles in high-ranking journals (e.g, Journal of Youth and Adolescence and the Journal of Social Policy) with scope for another co-authored methodological paper. These outputs will help establish myself as a recognised expert in the field of adolescent SRHR and contribute to REF 2029. 2. Skill Development and Dissemination The fellowship will have an important and lasting impact on my ability to work as a researcher, as it will provide vital training and skills development opportunities and routes to dissemination. I will: Undertake training on ethics of participatory group consultations with young people and policy impact to develop my expertise in policy-relevant youth-centred research. Present findings at the Social Policy Association Annual Conference. Organise an online research seminar on including young people in decision-making, fostering collaborations across human rights, social work, social policy and global health. These activities will create working relationships and strengthen networks that will be vital for building a strong application to the ESRC New Investigator grant (on young people’s decision-making in other interventions such as mobile apps) and for future job applications as a Lecturer in Social Policy. 3. Further Case Study Research and Knowledge Exchange To co-design a case study with Poderosas, a Colombian charity providing comprehensive sex education to adolescents in areas with high levels of socioeconomic inequality, to improve adolescent girls’ SRHR. This will: Disseminate findings to adolescent migrant girls and local practitioners (Poderosas). Facilitate knowledge transfer partnerships using participatory methods with Poderosas and adolescents to develop recommendations for policy and practice that would enhance autonomy. Generate empirical evidence through a case study of community-based, participatory adolescent SRHR initiatives. This case study will be disseminated with partners in the department, including the IberoAmerican Alliance on Access to Justice report on Children and Adolescents and the NIHR Adolescent Well-Being in Malawi project to understand experiences from other regions. The case study will generate recommendations on how practitioners in other settings can operationalise findings to create transformative interventions to achieve SRHR and Reproductive Justice.