Social factors influencing boy child perception on gender based violence in day secondary schools in Kiambu district, Kiambu county, Kenya

Abstract

This study sought to investigate social factors influencing boy child perception on gender based violence in day secondary schools in Kiambu District, Kiambu County, Kenya. One of the potentially worst challenges facing the world today is Gender Based Violence (GBV). GBV has emerged as a salient topic in the human security community; it has been framed principally with respect to violence against women and girls, particularly sexual violence. Gender Based Violence in Kenya is vastly widespread though, people remain silent over it because of being perceived as part of the culture. The government has taken several steps in addressing Gender Based Violence and particularly violence against women, this efforts have in effect made the male gender be ignored despite being perceived to be the perpetrators of GBV. That has resulted from the assumption that men are already empowered despite the fact that there is no tangible evidence to support this kind of thinking. These steps contributed to the reduction of the reported GBV cases by 11.1% between 2005 and 2009. However, Economic survey report 2011 pointed out that Kiambu and Mombasa counties make up some of the worst hit counties in the country where violence towards men is rampant and the trend of cases reported is increasing. Rampant increase of GBV in Kiambu District, particularly against men, portrays a complete lack of authority and power in the family front. A man‟s position in the family has been absolutely compromised before women and the children by his status. In spite of the many initiatives that presently exist to address domestic violence in general, Kenyan communities particularly in Kiambu District are yet to significantly reduce the cases of GBV where it is so prevalent and has forced many families to break. This study sought to investigate whether gender role expectations, social cultural norms, family relations and substance abuse influence the boy child perception of gender based violence in day secondary schools in Kiambu District, Kiambu County, Kenya. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The target population for the study was 360 comprising of principals, deputy principals and teachers from 18 different schools. The study targeted 5400 students from all the 18 district day secondary schools in the district. The study employed Mugenda and Mugenda formula in coming up with a sample size of 394 respondents. It adopted the use of questionnaires in primary data collection. The study generated both qualitative and quantitative data where quantitative data was coded and entered into SPSS and analyzed using descriptive statistics where presentation was done using frequency tables and figures. It concluded that gender role expectations provide structures relating to the transition period which tend to be enforced through abusive tactics such as bullying and gender-based harassments in especially mixed schools. Bride price is part of the patriarchal establishment in the society which breeds to more inequality between women and men and therefore further placing women in a subordinate position. Perpetrators of gender based violence in homes are mostly abusive men who as children witnessed parental violence or experienced child abuse. The family plays a fundamental part in promoting violent behaviors and that there is violent behaviors among adolescents and/or children from violent homes at school. Finally, the study concluded that substance abuse results to impaired judgments; most of the drunk parents reported to have HIV/AIDS perpetrate gender based violence through sex