VULNERABILITY AND RISK TOWARDS VIOLENCE: A STUDY AMONG URBAN ADOLESCENT BOYS

Perpetration of violence among adolescent boys is prevalent across the globe

• Is associated with the prevailing gender norms that supports – power dynamics between men and women

– Control over women by men

– Double standard towards expectation from men and women

• These norms manifests pressure on boys and men to behave in sexually & physically aggressive ways – Thus increases the probability of violence from early ages

All adolescent boys are not violent • …but risk factors that influences the perpetration

of violence include – family history of being experienced violence during

childhood, – a history of early aggression in childhood, – neighborhood violence, – poor relations with parents, – drug and alcohol use, – having delinquent peers, – gang membership, – poor school performance, and – residing in a poor community with diminished economic

opportunities

These risk factors gets internalized and creates….. – Negative masculine norms

– Aggressive and abusive attitude

– Negative perception towards women and girls

– Justification towards VAW

– Inequitable gender norms

– Perpetration of violence against peers/others

• School

• Community

• Family

– Perpetration of sexual and other forms of violence against women and girls

Objectives of the study

• To find the correlation of perpetration of violence among adolescent boys:

– To explore the extent of perpetration of violence among adolescent boys across two different economic strata of population

– To explore the extent of how in-equitable gender attitudes and exposure to violence increase the risk and perpetration of violence among adolescent boys.

Methodology and Population • A purposive sampling methodology

– Boys who were enrolled in cricket coaching at the school level (non-slum=473)

– Boys were selected from community by mentors (slum=567)

• 1040 boys ages 10-16 years

• This is part of an intervention study and to match the population for this analysis, boys who are currently enrolled in school from 6th to 10th standard (middle to high school) were taken

Measures

• 21 items on gender norms, including controlling behaviors towards girls; used to form the Gender Equitable Measure Scale, and

• 10 items focused on justifying/condoning gender based violence (whether it is okay to hit a girl if she behaves in a certain way).

Measures • GEMS

– total score ranged from 0 to 84

– scores were divided into tertiles as 0–28 (less gender equitable), 29–56 (moderately equitable) and 57–84 (more equitable) (Cronbach alpha . 0.70).

• Condoning violence against girls

– scores ranged from 0 to 40

– equally divided as 0–13, 14–26 and 27–40, with higher scores indicating less agreement with condoning violence against girls (Cronbach alpha . 0.83).

Types of violence

• Peer Violence:

– verbal abuse, stalking, beating, slapping, kicking, hitting with an object, and threatening with a weapon

• Sexual violence:

– Eve teasing’ of girls, showing pornographic images without their consent, pushing or grabbing girls, making sexual jokes, yelling at girls, and spreading sexual rumors about girls.

Ethical considerations • The study protocol, including the written informed consent process, was reviewed and approved by the ICRW Institutional Review Board.

– Consent forms for parents and assent forms for athletes were translated into Hindi and Marathi and were distributed prior to the survey.

– Coaches were asked to distribute parent informational letters and consent forms to the athletes.

– Mentors were given training and asked to visit each HH to get parents consent.

– youth returning completed parent consent forms were eligible to take the self-administered, paper survey.

The exposure of different form of violence against women is high among boys from slum community • Exposure to dating violence among peers

– Slum 35% – Non-slum 27%

• Exposure to violence against women in the community – Slum 69% – Non-slum 59%

• Exposure to parental violence – Slum 41% – Non-slum 22%

• Victim of violence – Abusive violence (slum 80% & non-slum 84%) – Physical violence (slum 74% & non-slum 69%)

8 out of 10 boys perpetrate violence against their peers…..

• Any violence against peers – Slum 85%

– Non-slum 88%

• 76% reported physical violence – 76% among non-slum

– 75% among slum

• 14% reported sexual violence perpetration against girls – 10% among non-slum

– 19% among slum

Perpetration of all type of violence

Boys exposed and victimized by abusive and/or physical violence are more likely to perpetrate

• Adolescent boys who have witnessed VAW were 2.5 (all boys), 2 (slum) and 3.1 (non-slum) times more likely to perpetrate violence

• Victim of physical violence increases the likelihood of perpetration

– 5.1 times among all

– 4.5 times among slum

– 8.3 times among non-slum

Perpetration of sexual violence is highly associated with gender equitable attitude

Conclusion

• Inequitable gender attitudes and exposure to violence and the associations of such factors with self-reported violence perpetration against peers and girls.

• Though most investigations regarding sexual violence occurring among adolescents target college- age populations, there is growing evidence that sexual violence in dating and acquaintance relationships may occur among much younger populations

• Important to discuss here is that, gender inequitable attitudes may be a modifiable risk factor and a potential target for prevention of violence perpetration, especially among young men exposed to family, school and community violence.

– How and where to intervene is important

Way forward….

• These results have practical implications for service providers and researchers. – As the data shows high level of perpetration as well as

victimization of violence, service providers need to be sensitive to the concerns and experiences of these youth to adequately treat and prevent this devastating social problem.

• More research is needed to explore the level of substance use and entry into unsafe sexual relationship with this population – Need more of a collaborative action by different partners at the

community

• The results shows that if we do not intervene early many of these young people may develop violent relationship patterns that persist throughout their live.

The Intervention program

• Parivartan…means transformation

– Worked with men and boys

– Gender norms and GBV

– Using sports as a platform to engage men and boys

– Uses the concept of gender equitable role model to bring change

• http://parivartan.futureswithoutviolence.org/

• http://www.icrw.org/publications/engaging-coaches-and-athletes-fostering-gender-equity