Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Aburae'

This is about women, poverty and vulnerability of HIV/AIDS in Moree and Asebu in the Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese District in the Central Region of Ghana. The main objective of the study is to find out whether poverty actually makes women vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in the two communities, thus Moree and Asebu. The study employed the use of Actor Oriented theories such as agency, action, power and structures in structuration theory. It also makes use of risk theories, feminist geographies and the concepts of space, place and time.

Multiple methods within the qualitative approach were used, in the data collection. These included administration of a semi structured interview guide, which covered a purposive sample of 30 respondents of which 80 percent were female and 20 percent males who were ordinary local people in Moree and Asebu. 27 in-depth interviews using unstructured interview guide were conducted among key informants. Focus group discussion and observations were also conducted. The primary data was complemented with secondary data from the Ghana HIV Sentinel Surveillance Surveys, the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy, yearly report on HIV cases in the Abura-Asebu- Kwamankese District and the district profile of Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese District.

The study further reveals that the triggering effect of poverty to HIV infection is something that cannot be done away with. Women were seen to be worst affected with poverty. These poor conditions have led to these females adapting to various coping strategies with life, which make them vulnerable to HIV/infection. This is because women are more at risk and are likely to adopt risky sexual behaviours that could put them in high-risk position for infection. The study reveals that the masculinity of the society has made females dependent on males and this constrains them from entering into any economic venture and negotiating for protective sex. It was realised also that the causes of female poverty and the coping strategies that were likely to be adopted by the people within the fishing community is slightly different from females in the farming community. Majority of the findings were analysed qualitatively, however, I quantified only a few. Based on the findings, conclusions and recommendations were drawn.

While the bivariate analysis showed little correlation among the independent variables and wife abuse, the intervening variables--stress, drinking, and marital conflict--were highly related. The results of the multiple regression and path analyses revealed that marital conflict had the strongest effect and was the best predictor of wife abuse. Stress and drinking also had a significant effect on wife abuse. While number of children, years married, social isolation of the wife, and her employment status appeared to have little impact on wife abuse, socio-economic status (both measures) is consistently related with wife abuse, and with all the intervening variables. The combination of the variables in the models explain approximately 15% to 20% of the variance in wife abuse in Thailand.
Master of Science

Research suggests that sexual abuse (SA) increases the likelihood of alcohol/drug use (AOD), and that AOD increases criminality. As such, in this study 50 women completed a survey reporting their histories of SA, AOD, and criminality. Fifteen related hypotheses were formulated: age at which drug abuse began would be lower; total number of drugs used, higher; age of first crime, lower; age of first incarceration, lower; and cumulative time in prison, greater, for those with SA vs. those without, for those who did not report their SA vs. those who did, and for those who did not receive treatment for SA vs. those who did. Thirteen of 15 hypotheses trended as predicted, significantly different from chance using Chi square. Trends for those who did not report SA vs. those who did, and for those who did not receive treatment for SA vs. those who did, were universally in line with hypotheses. Hypotheses regarding those with SA vs. those without remain less clear, with three of five outcome measures trending as expected. Together, these findings suggest that it may not be an SA history in itself that predicts earlier and greater severity of AOD, earlier criminal behavior, and greater prison time; but that the lack of treatment for SA and lack of reporting of SA may predict earlier and more severe behavioral disruptions. This underscores the importance of supporting girls and women who experience SA with access to reporting and treatment to reduce the emotional and behavioral sequellae of SA.

Keywords: substance use, sexual abuse, criminality, alcohol use

The main purpose of the present thesis was to develop a measurement instrument aimed to reveal attitudes towards child sexual abuse, and to measure attitudes and associating personal, social and cultural factors among three different samples of Norwegian adults. Additional aims were to explore the relation between participants’ knowledge-seeking on the one hand, their experiences, attitudes and actual knowledge about abuse on the other hand.

Three studies are presented based on the same data material collected in Norway in spring 2004. Three samples were included in the survey: A sample of randomly selected adults between 18-67 years (n = 296). A sample of active Christians between 22-65 years (n = 125) and finally a sample of imprisoned child sexual offenders between 21-74 years (n = 36).

Study I was primarily concerned about the development and validation of a new measurement instrument, entitled Attitudes towards child sexual abuse (ACA). The scale consisted of four different attitudinal dimensions. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the four-factor structure. The four dimensions were entitled 1) Acceptance and responsibility, 2) Fatalism, 3) Damages caused by abuse, and 4) Legal issues. The result showed that there were significant attitude differences across the samples. The differences were in the expected direction e.g. offenders reported more abuse-accepting attitudes than the random adults and active Christians, and men had more abuse-accepting attitudes than women. This confirms the discriminative properties of ACA. Furthermore, the factors hypothesized to be associated with attitudes towards abuse behaved as expected, e.g. high empathy was related to more averse attitudes. Conclusively, the scale was found to be valid and reliable.

Study II further investigated attitudes towards abuse and explored cultural, social and personal factors associated with these attitudes. The results showed that different factors were predictors of attitudes in the three samples. Empathy and normlessness were the best predictors of attitudes among the random sample of adults and the active Christians. The most significant predictors of attitudes among the prisoners were their view of women and femininity. This may imply that different intervention strategies should be chosen depending on the target group.

Study III aimed to explore attitudes towards and knowledge-seeking about child sexual abuse among the samples. It was hypothesized that those who seek more knowledge had more accurate knowledge about abuse, and that the difference in knowledge-seeking and attitudes were related to the respondents’ own experience with abuse. It was furthermore expected that both knowledge-seeking and attitudes were predictors of abusive behaviour. The results suggested that attitudes and knowledge-seeking differed across samples and gender. The active Christians had most aversive attitudes towards child sexual abuse and sought more knowledge about abuse than the comparing samples. The respondents who reported high knowledge-seeking seemed to have more knowledge of abuse as well. However, a more comprehensive measurement of both knowledge-seeking and actual knowledge is recommended in future studies. Knowledge-seeking was related to both direct and indirect experience, e.g. victims of abuse had higher knowledge-seeking compared to non-victims and those who knew a victim had higher knowledge-seeking than those who did not know a victim. Abusive behaviour was predicted by attitudes, gender and sample. Knowledge-seeking did not predict abusive behaviour.

Taken together, the three studies showed that the hypothesized attitudinal differences between the three samples, were confirmed. Furthermore, the expected relation between attitudes on the one hand and social, cultural, and personality factors and knowledge-seeking on the other hand, was supported. The result as a whole may serve as a guide to interventions aimed to prevent abuse.