“A Slap of Love”: A Way of Showing Love and Resolving Conflict Among Young People in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

This article draws on qualitative study to examine Congolese male and female high school students’ attitudes toward intimate partner violence. A total of 56 boys and girls aged 16–20 years from two urban and two rural high schools in South Kivu province took part in focus groups, and 40 of these were subsequently interviewed individually. To the majority of male and female participants, when the man or boy beats his wife or girlfriend that means he loves her and he wants her to change. They believed that if a boy does not love her, he may let her go on making mistakes. Some male participants viewed women and girlfriend beating as a way to let her realize her inferiority. However, some female participants disagreed with these assumptions but they concomitantly accepted a “slap of love.” There is a strong need to re-educating both males and females to address the problem, and particularly train men to treat women respectfully and non-violently.

The Intersection of Power and Gender: Examining the Relationship of Empowerment and Gender-Unequal Norms Among Young Adolescents in Kinshasa, DRC

“…Conversely, we found a negative relationship between perceptions of familial roles (GSR) for males and females and decision-making among girls, but not boys. This finding aligns with the notion that men, not women, should hold the decisionmaking role within the household which has been documented extensively among adults, including within Kinshasa [25,26,28]. That the ability to make decisions is lower among girls who specifically perceive greater power imbalance in household decisions roles between men and women aligns with Connell's Theory of Gender and Power, specifically the idea of cathexis, the social norms that constrain and enforce strict gender roles.…”

‘It’s not good to eat a candy in a wrapper’: male students’ perspectives on condom use and concurrent sexual partnerships in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

“…This may result in the girl’s hypocrisy. As a reason for responding negatively to requests for sex, girls often say no although they may desire it, they are afraid their boyfriends will afterwards despise them, consider them prostitutes, and recount their sexual endeavours to their peers (Mulumeoderhwa & Harris, 2014 ). A study in South Africa reports that participants support concurrent sexual partners as a way of ensuring that men cannot miss a girlfriend if one ‘breaks your heart’, and this practice also helps men make the choice of a future spouse (Mulumeoderhwa & Harris, 2013 ).…”