The role of gender-based violence in fuelling the global HIV pandemic is now undeniable. In recent years, research from both developed and developing countries has consistently shown that women who experience gender-based violence and gender inequality are at greater risk of HIV.^1–4 Mounting evidence on connections between men’s perpetration of gender-based violence and male HIV risk behaviour suggests that women’s HIV risk is often primarily dependent on the behaviour of the men in their lives. Research from South Africa, India and the United States has suggested that men who are violent towards their female partners or commit rape are more likely to have sex more often, to have sex with concurrent and/or casual sexual partners, to have higher total numbers of sexual partners, to practice anal sex, to participate in transactional sex, to father children, and to use alcohol and drugs.^5–9

In this issue of Sexually Transmitted Infections, Jay Silverman and colleagues¹⁰ present findings from Bangladesh which show …