TATUS OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AGAINST PRIVATE COLLEGE FEMALE STUDENTS OF HARAR TOWN, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Back ground: Gender based violence (violence against women/girls) is not only a serious health and development problem but also it is violation of human right. Violence has posed a tremendous challenge to African women both in the workplace and educational setting, and this problem has impacted women's self-esteem as well as their academic, social, and psychological wellbeing. However, there is limited data on violence against women (VAW) in the context of higher education in Ethiopia particularly in private colleges. Objective: To assess status of gender based violence and associated risk factors, against private college female students of Harar town, Ethiopia, from 15, March, to 10, April, 2016. Methods: Institutional based cross sectional study was conducted to gather information from a total of 965 senior private colleges’ female students. Three hundred two students were selected randomly and pretested anonymous self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Data were entered and cleaned using SPSS, version 20. Then the data was processed and analyzed. Different frequency tables, graphs, charts and descriptive summaries were used to describe the study variables. Bivariate analysis involved the use of the Chi-square test for assessing the significance of associations between GBV and socio-demographic variables and multivariate analyses with odds ratio (OR) along with the 95% CI were estimated and interpreted accordingly to identify factors that were significantly associated with physical and sexual violence. For all statistical tests P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Result: A total of 298 (98.7%) participants complete the questionnaire and over all status of gender based violence was 172 (57.7%). Specifically, 36.2%, 46.6% and 56.7% of students experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence respectively. The prevalence of attempted rape and complete rape were 32.2 % and 30.9 % respectively. Religious affiliation, ethnicity, being living alone in rent house or in group with other roommate and having a partner (husband or boyfriend), and peer influence were significant predictors of GBV Conclusions and Recommendations: The study reveled that a considerable number of students suffered from gender based violence specially, physical violence, sexual violence, psychological abuse and its consequences since being admitted in the college. Interventions are, therefore, required by the college authorities and other stakeholders through GBV awareness creation programs, legal protection and implementation of an effective redress mechanism are recommended to curb this menace.