Perception of Gender-Based Violence and Sexual Harassment in University Students: Analysis of the Information Sources and Risk within a Relationship

Abstract

In a truly democratic society, there should be no place for any kind of discrimination or violence. Among the basic tools for eradicating discrimination and violence against women, education has a crucial role to play. Education about gender should be considered at all levels, in all year groups and across the curriculum, so as to improve education about this subject. Although these matters are increasingly addressed, at university level, including at postgraduate level, they are often forgotten. The purpose of this study is to break down the level of knowledge of gender-based violence and/or sexual stalking, the sources of information most widely used for developing this knowledge, and beliefs about situations of risk in relationships among a sample of 268 Science and Social Science students at the University of Córdoba (Spain). The analysis was descriptive, comparative and correlative. Means and standard deviations were analyzed, and correlations were used to establish possible relations among the variables. Cluster analysis was used to distribute the sample with respect to knowledge of violence and Student’s t-test was used to identify differences between groups. The chi-squared test was used to find the association between variables such as situations of violence and places of residence. The results show that, although the experience of gender-based violence is among the least common sources of violence, there is evidence that these situations do exist, and the risk of violent acts and/or stalking is greater when couples break up. The perception of risk is higher when students have a greater knowledge of gender-based violence or sexual harassment and this perception is higher in women. As expected, greater knowledge is also associated with experience of this type of situation; however, place of residence was not linked to greater or lesser knowledge. Training in gender is considered essential and necessary in the university environment.

Knowledge and Incidence of Gender-Based Violence among Young Adults in the South-South Region of Nigeria: A Comparative Study

“…This report further documented that over 60% of the respondents could clearly indicate the de nition of gender-based violence. This is in tandem with ndings in a similar study whose respondents showed a satisfactory knowledge of gender-based violence with over 69% scoring above average as they have could clearly describe gender-based violence 10,11 . This study further showed that 72.9% young adults could identify the various forms of gender-based violence with 20.3% indicating that lecturers and teachers are the commonest perpetrators of gender-based violence.…”

“…Finally, this study showed that generally, respondents had a moderate knowledge of gender-based violence with an average of 12.02 out of 18 points. 15 . This study also revealed that 18.2% of victims did not report to anyone about when they experienced GBV while 19.9% indicated that if they were to experience gender-based violence, they would keep it to themselves.…”

Perception of Women on Gender-Based Violence in Guinea: A Qualitative Study

“…In another school-based study in Ethiopia, sexual violence and physical violence were 37.2% and 56.3% respectively [15]. In addition, other authors have reported harassment [16,17]. A systematic review in sub-Saharan Africa also reveals other forms including emotional violence (29.40%) [18].…”

Post gender-based violence care, support services and health outcomes among victims of gender-based violence in Akwa Ibom and Cross-River States Nigeria

“…Gender-based violence seriously impacts the immediate physical and psychological health of survivors and contributes to a greater risk of future health problems. Osuna-Rodrigues et al agreed that the impacts of gender-based violence lasts long even after the incidence and can affect the survivor's self-esteem and quality of life, while contributing to exposing him or her to further abuse [10].…”