Purpose This article examines the effects of a girls’ social empowerment program, Creating Opportunities through Mentoring, Parental Involvement and Safe Spaces, on economic vulnerability of participating adolescent refugee girls in Ethiopia. Methods Adolescents aged 13–19 years from three refugee camps were randomly assigned to either a treatment (n = 457) or control (n = 462) condition. Participants in the treatment condition received 40 fixed-curriculum, mentor-facilitated sessions once a week over a period of 10 months, whereas those in the control condition were not exposed to the curriculum. Caregivers of girls in the treatment arm also participated in 10 discussion sessions held once a month over the same period, where they learned about issues relevant to adolescent girls’ well-being and safety. Data were collected from adolescent girls at baseline and approximately 10 months following intervention initiation. Results Using logistic regression modeling, we found that, following the intervention, girls in the treatment arm were no more or less likely than those in the control arm to attend school, work for pay, work for pay while not being enrolled in school, or engage in transactional sexual exploitation. Conclusions Findings suggest that stand-alone social empowerment programs may not reduce economic vulnerability for adolescent girls without simultaneously implementing economic empowerment programs or taking additional measures to address broader structural barriers. © 2017

Social empowerment Refugees Ethiopia Economic vulnerability

education Parents Mentors household social norm refugee health care planning child safety human wellbeing Refugees clinical assessment economic aspect work controlled study priority journal program effectiveness financial management qualitative research student Young Adult Humans psychology Adolescent curriculum development female mentor safety mentoring Behavior financial statement sexual exploitation refugee camp school Financial Statements Article Ethiopia major clinical study adult transactional sex Reproductive Health Students empowerment employment Power (Psychology) caregiver child parent relation program impact