Knowledge and attitude of young adults towards gender-based violence
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Date
2021-07
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand)
Abstract
Gender-based violence is a plague that can be fought through education and spreading awareness among the largest emerging population in the world. Young people can play positive roles in building peace and promoting recovery and development, or simply support their families and communities during and after violence. Prevention is the only way to stop violence before it even occurs and knowledge and awareness is the key to fight against any kind of violence. The weapon of knowledge and right approach/attitude of young people can make a difference in the current situation of gender-based violence. So, investment must be done to spread knowledge and awareness among young population in supporting the next generation of youth to lead fulfilled and productive lives free of violence. A dire need was felt for identification and understanding of what kind of attitude and knowledge is being carried by our young adults because future situations, prevention and eradication of gender-based violence depend on their knowledge and attitude. Therefore, the descriptive research was proposed, aimed to assess knowledge and attitude of young adults towards genderbased violence. A total number of 240 male and female young adults were selected as sample of the research through Population Proportion sampling method from two colleges of G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology. To achieve the research objective, a tool namely Knowledge Test on Gender-based violence (K-GBV) and Attitude Scale on Gender-based violence (A-GBV) was developed and thereafter reliability and validity of the tool was calculated before its application. Due to Covid-19 pandemic situation, researcher collected the data through online mode. The Knowledge Test on Gender-based violence (K-GBV) and Attitude Scale on Gender-based violence (AGBV) were converted in FourEyes forms, the link which was later sent to the respondents through emails and WhatsApp application. The information received from selected respondents was further utilized for coding and analysis. Suitable statistical methods i.e. frequency, percentage, p value, Mean and standard Deviation were applied on collected data to derive the research results. After analysis and comparing the data, the finding of research reflected that high level of knowledge and favorable/disagreement attitude towards gender-based violence was quite evident among majority of young adults. As far as gender was concerned, high level of knowledge and favorable/disagreement attitude was higher among female respondents as compared to male. It was found that majority of young adults between the age group of 22-25 years portrayed high level of knowledge a as compared to young adults between the age-range of 18-21 years. The percentage of high level of knowledge was also higher among young adults belonging to home science College and middle; high income families. Majority of young adults who have to graduate fathers, post-graduate mothers and parents working in government and private sector portrayed high level of knowledge in reference to gender-based violence. Majority of young adults (male and female; young adults belonging to age group 22-25 years, College of Home Science, all family income groups) portrayed strong disagreement on conducts of selected aspects of attitude scale on Gender-based violence, domestic violence, eve-teasing, early and forced marriages: marry-your-rapist, acid attacks, human trafficking, sexual violence, killing as gender-based violence. Majority of young adults (male and female; young adults belonging to age group 22-25 years, College of Home Science, all family income groups) agreed that patriarchal society, lack of focus on training for self-defenses, unreported cases of violence against women, lack of education on gender equality, lack of focus on reproductive health education and building healthy relationship and less focus on human values in education system as the root cause of gender-based violence. Majority of young adults (male and female; young adults belonging to age group 22-25 years, College of Home Science, all family income groups) agreed that eve teasing, cyber-sex trafficking, acid attack, dowry death, honor killing, sexual violence, physical violence, early and forced marriages and domestic violence should be considered as a criminal offence and death penalty, public humiliation, imprisonments and boycotting from the society should be the punishments given to the perpetrator. A significant association was found between knowledge and attitude of young adults towards gender-based violence and selected independent variable.