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Article History

Received: 2 May 2019

Accepted: 9 September 2019

First Online: 18 September 2019

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: Ethics approval was obtained prior to the study from both Norway and DRC, specifically from the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (39810/3/IB) and La Commission Institutionelle d’Ethique, Université Catholique de Bukavu (UCB/CIE/04/2014).Informed consent was obtained from all study participants.

: Not applicable because only aggregate measures are used in this analysis.

: We wish to draw the attention of the Editor to the following facts which may be considered as potential conflicts of interest. PRIO’s local partner for the research project, the International Center for Advanced Research and Training (ICART) in Bukavu, DRC, has Panzi Foundation DRC as one of its founding partners. Panzi Foundation DRC is also a co-founder of the program under study, City of Joy (the other co-founder being the V-Day Organization). Furthermore, one of the authors of the study, Christine Amisi, also holds a position as a medical doctor at Panzi Hospital, which is the hospital which initiated Panzi Foundation DRC. By nature, since this project is a partnership between PRIO and the International Centre for Advanced Research and Training (ICART) which includes researchers associated with implementing agencies (Panzi Hospital and Panzi Foundation) we cannot guarantee independence of research with complete certainty. However, the researchers involved in the project have never been employed by and are not financially relying on the City of Joy program, or directly affiliated with them. The research partners at ICART have a sincere wish to conduct scientifically sound research in order to inform future project development and to improve various existing support programs. Through regular project meetings and quality control measures in various stages of the research process, we have assured data reliability and analytical rigor.