FORUT recently launched a report written by Anne-Marie Laslett and Megan Cook from the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at La Trobe University in Melbourne. The report is a literature review with the aim of building increased understanding of the effects of alcohol on women and children in the Global South.

«Alcohol was associated with a vast number of health and social problems that substantially affect women, adolescents and children in the Global South. These health and social problems cause death and disability and cut short or compromise the quality of life of women and children.»

The review identified 779 publications (published between 2008 and 2018) that identified harms to women and children from their own and others’ drinking in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC). After careful and systematic selection 309 publications were included in the study. The report is meticulously put together, and albeit slim in terms of number of pages, it is rich in content and especially references. This makes it a gold mine for researchers and people working in the field of alcohol-related harm to women and/or children who want quick access to relevant and reviewed research publications. In addition, the entire Global South is covered.

Findings

The report explores research on both the harms from one’s own and others’s drinking and seeks to identify the types of health and social harms from alcohol use experienced by women, children and adolescents. The findings of the review are presented in thematic chapters on:

• alcohol’s impact on the wellbeing and quality of life of women in the Global South
• alcohol-related harms to the health of women
• alcohol-related harms to the health of adolescents 
• alcohol-related harms to children from others’s drinking
• alcohol’s impact on women and children’s risk of and harms from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmittable diseases
• whether drinking in the family affects the education of women and children
• whether alcohol is related to gender equality and empowerment of women and girls.

The report finds that in the publications:

«alcohol was associated with a vast number of health and social problems that substantially affect women, adolescents and children in the Global South. These health and social problems cause death and disability and cut short or compromise the quality of life of women and children»(p. 3).

The report especially looks at its findings in relation to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and concludes that 

«reducing alcohol-related harm should contribute to the UN SDG 3 – to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages» (p. 27).