Young people's understanding of domestic violence - CiteSeerX

GENUS, LXX (No. 2-3), 35-57

IWU DWISETYANI UTOMO* – ARIANE UTOMO* – ANNA REIMONDOS* PETER MCDONALD* – TERENCE H. HULL*

Young people’s understanding of domestic violence: evidence from a school based survey of Grade 6 and Grade 12 students in Indonesia 1.

INTRODUCTION

Violence against women has been described as the most pervasive, yet least recognized human rights violation in the world (Heise et al., 2002). While gender-based violence can take on many forms, the most common is violence by intimate partners in domestic settings, hereon referred to as domestic violence. An important determinant explaining the variation in levels and patterns of domestic violence around the world is societal gender norms (WHO, 2013). In particular, gender role beliefs which support the role of men as authority figures within the household, and women as self-sacrificing and passive members of the household, can create and maintain an ideology that legitimizes domestic violence (Finn, 1986). In Indonesia, the male breadwinner model still prevails as the ideal of gender role arrangements in marriage (Woodcroft-Lee, 1983; Bulbeck, 2005; Utomo, 2012) and is even formally stipulated in the Marriage Act 1974 (Katjasungkana, 2013). However, the male breadwinner role is not confined to the division of labour within and outside the household. In many ethnic settings, women and girls are culturally trained to be submissive (nrimo); and to obey their husbands who are formally regarded as the titular and actual heads of the household (Utomo, 2005). In this cultural context, domestic violence is regarded as ‘natural’ or as part of a woman’s fate (Munir, 2005). Javanese ethics, reinforced by traditional Islamic interpretations of women’s duties, also emphasise the role of women in maintaining family harmony (Arimbi, 2009). This can lead to a ‘culture of silence’ and strong reluctance to report cases of violence perpetrated by husbands, for fear of disturbing the family harmony (Arimbi, 2009; Katjasungkana, 2013). As a result, while public awareness regarding domestic violence has grown in recent years, the reporting and prosecution of cases remains very low (Bennett et al., 2011). While the international literature has examined attitudes towards domestic violence among adults (Flood and Pease, 2009; Hindin, 2003; Kim and * Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, The Australian National University, Canberra. Corresponding author: Iwu Utomo; e-mail: [email protected].

35

UTOMO – UTOMO – REIMONDOS – MCDONALD – HULL

Motsei, 2002; Pierotti, 2013; Uthman et al., 2009; Worden and Carlson, 2005), less is known about the attitudes and understanding of domestic violence among younger members of the population (Burton et al., 1998; Mullender et al., 2004), and how this relates to their gender role beliefs. Understanding children’s and adolescents’ attitudes is important because their current views may influence whether they report cases of domestic violence, and also whether they themselves will engage in or accept domestic violence in their future relationships. In this paper, we use data from a school-based survey of Grade 6 and Grade 12 students in four provinces of Indonesia to examine the link between gender role attitudes and students’ definition of domestic violence. The provinces include Jakarta and West Java where more metropolitan values are practiced as compared to South Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara which hold much stronger Islamic values. Thus we explore how definitions of domestic violence vary according to the type of school they attend, and the region that they live in. Before discussing the data and method in detail, we give a background on the current prevalence of and the policy response to domestic violence in Indonesia. 2. BACKGROUND: DOMESTIC VIOLCENCE IN INDONESIA

2.1 Prevalence There have been no systematic surveys on domestic violence in Indonesia at the time of the writing, although a large-scale survey on domestic violence is planned for 2014 (Faizal, 2012). In 2006, the National Socioeconomic Survey (SUSENAS) included a module on violence against women which was administered to a sample of women aged 18 and over, and women under 18 who were ever married. The data suggested that about 3.1% of women had experienced some form of violence in the one year prior to the survey date (equivalent to 2.3 million women per year in 2006) (Imawan, 2013). Although a post-enumeration survey suggested that there was considerable underreporting of domestic violence in that survey, the data gathered from this large-scale survey still provide useful insights to the nature of domestic violence in Indonesia. The survey defined domestic violence to include acts of persecution, humiliation, neglect, and harassment with humiliation being the most frequent type of domestic violence reported by respondents. Higher prevalence estimates of domestic violence have been reported in the past from several other smaller studies. A 1999 study of 765 women aged 15-49 in the Purworejo district of Central Java, estimated that the life-time prevalence of physical violence experienced by women was 11% (Hayati et al., 2011). Another survey of 504 ever-married women with children living in 36

YOUNG PEOPLE’S UNDERSTANDING OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: EVIDENCE FROM...

Mataram (Lombok) and rural Sumbawa, found that 11% reported experiencing physical assaults by their husbands in the past year (Bennett et al., 2011). A hospital-based study conducted in the city of Pekanbaru in Riau Province in Sumatra found 237 registered victims of domestic violence in 2011 (Afandi et al., 2012). Hospital medical reports indicated that the majority of domestic violence victims were women aged between 19 and 40 and that over 80% were housewives. About 70% of the victims presented with bruising, with head and neck being the most frequent sites of injury (74%). Just over 90% of the victims suffered from blunt force injury diagnosed as mild in severity. An NGO working on gender-based violence in the district of Greater Solo in Central Java reported that most cases of domestic violence were associated with husband’s dominance in marriage and with economic-related factors (Tim Unit Khusus Penanganan Kasus SPEK-HAM, 2010). Economic neglect is a common feature in these domestic violence cases. In the most extreme example, it was reported that one of the victims had to resort to work as a commercial sex worker to provide for herself and her children. For this particular NGO, the reported cases of gender-based and domestic violence had increased considerably over the years, from 3 cases reported in 1999 to 53 cases in 2010. The rise in reported cases was attributed to socialisation efforts and the subsequent rise in awareness of gender-based violence in the community, the increasing tendency for women to report cases to authorities, and the internal changes within the organisation to reinforce community participation in identifying victims of gender-based violence. Overall however, across Indonesia only a very small percentage of cases are ever reported to the authorities. This is in part due to the strong social stigma that domestic violence is associated with unsuccessful marriage and the common perception that in unsuccessful marriage it is the women who is to blame. 2.2 Policies Several policies that target domestic violence have been implemented in recent years including the establishment of a National Commission on Violence Against Women in 1998, the passing of the Eradication of Domestic Violence Act in 2004, and the release of the Zero Tolerance Policy on domestic violence in 2005. The Eradication of Domestic Violence act includes many progressive components, including a definition of violence which acknowledges that it can be physical, psychological and sexual in nature (Katjasungkana, 2013). The National Commission on Violence Against Women has also come a long way in promoting public awareness of violence against women, and in putting forward recommendations to the government, legislative and judicial bodies. Special units in police departments have also been established, staffed by female officers trained to handle domestic violence 37


cases. Campaigns to raise public awareness have been successfully translated into the introduction of the topic as an element of the curriculum in secondary schooling textbooks. Information on and definitions of domestic violence are currently included in some social science textbooks for junior and senior high school students. In one textbook, a definition is outlined within a module on family in social studies: “Domestic violence: acts of violence between husband and wife. A husband or wife who commits an act of violence to his/her partner, either physically or mentally, is defined as having committed a socially deviant act.” (Supriatna et al., 2007: 140). While the discussion of domestic violence in school textbooks appears to be brief and general, there have also been in-school small-scale pilot projects targeting domestic violence and the culture of violence. One notable example is an initiative aimed to reduce violence against women and children in Papua, with a primary strategy of promoting the use of positive discipline instead of corporal punishment among teachers in school (Cahill and Beadle, 2013). Although these significant achievements to address domestic violence have taken place at the legal structural level and also within the secondary education system, the bigger challenge is bringing about a cultural transformation supporting more egalitarian attitudes in gender relations. 3. CULTURE, ATTITUDES AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

A growing body of literature has sought to identify the multidimensional roots of gender-based violence across societies (Levinson, 1989; Heise et al., 1994), and to this end several different conceptual frameworks have been developed. Taking a macro-level approach, Levinson (1989) outlined four common characteristics in societies where gender-based violence is prevalent: economic inequality between men and women, male control over decision-making in the family, pattern of resorting to violence for conflict resolution, and difficulties for wives to attain a divorce. Along this line, Heise et al. (1994) further conceptualised four inter-related sets of factors that together operate to perpetuate genderbased violence: i) cultural factors (such as attitudes to and socialisation of gender roles), ii) economic factors (such as women’s economic dependence on men and their limited access to schooling and /or employment), iii) legal factors (such as inferior legal status of women, gender-biased laws on divorce, and inadequate legal protections for women), and iv) political factors (e.g. lack of female representation). An ecological framework has also been formulated to typify the root cause of violence against women (Carlson, 1984; Heise, 1998). The ecological framework highlights the multilevel origins of violence against women including societal, community, relationship, and individual factors. At the societal 38


level, traditional gender norms are identified as a key factor related to violence against women. Our conceptual framework aims to elucidate the associations between attitudes to gender norms and attitudes to domestic violence. In their review of the existing international research, Flood and Pease (2009) identified that relative to women, men are more likely to adhere to common myths about violence against women, perceive a narrower range of behaviours as violence, show less empathy and generally view the consequences of violence against women as being less serious or harmful (p. 127). Such a gender gap has also been observed in a 1998 survey of nearly 2,000 young people aged 14-21 in Scotland and England (Burton et al., 1998). For example, Burton et al. (1998) found that 9% of females said that it was true that “men only hit women because they love them”, compared to 23% of their male peers. Similar findings were seen in a study of children aged 8-16 (N = 1,395) in England (Mullender et al., 2004). As the authors note, however, “it is not sex per se that shapes men’s and women’s contrasting understanding of violence against women”, rather the underlying factor is differences in gender attitudes (Flood and Pease, 2009: 128). The strong link between attitudes to gender roles and to domestic violence at both the individual and family level is also suggested by a growing body of research examining attitudes towards domestic violence. (Flood and Pease, 2009; Hindin, 2003; Kim and Motsei, 2002; Pierotti, 2013; Uthman et al., 2009; Worden and Carlson,2005; Zakar et al., 2013). In other words, views about the acceptability of violence against women are closely related to gender role attitudes. There is a positive relationship between traditional sex role preferences and attitudes supporting the use of physical force by husbands against wives (Finn, 1986). This is true both for men and women. While there is a dearth of data on actual national prevalence of domestic violence, there are some statistics available on attitudes towards violence from the 2007 Indonesia Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Respondents were presented with five situations and asked whether a husband was justified in beating his wife in each situation. The possible answers were, yes, no and don’t know. The five situations were: if the wife goes out without telling him, if she neglects the children, if she argues with him, if she refuses to have sex with him, and if she cooks an inedible meal (Statistics Indonesia and Macro International, 2008). Just over 30% of ever-married women agreed that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife for at least one of the specified reasons, with the most support for hitting/beating being for the situation where the wife goes out without telling her husband, and in cases where she is neglecting the children. However, overall support varied according to respondent characteristics. In particular, women in rural areas, and those in the lower wealth quintiles were more likely to believe that violence was justified for at least one of the reasons (Statistics Indonesia and Macro International, 2008). 39


There was also evidence that young women were more supportive of domestic violence compared to their older peers. Finally, very large differences in support for domestic violence could be observed by province. For example, the percentage of ever-married women who agree that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife for at least one of the specified reasons ranged from less than 10% in DKI Jakarta, to 77% in West Nusa Tengara. (Statistics Indonesia and Macro International, 2008). In Indonesia, such variations in the acceptance of domestic violence may be linked to the prevailing gender role attitudes. In many ethnic settings, women and girls have responsibility for virtue, moral education and service, principally within the family, while males are the breadwinners and the heads of the household (Woodcroft-Lee, 1983; Parker, 1997; Bulbeck, 2005; Utomo, 2012). These patriarchal gender relations are also embedded in law, including the 1974 Marriage Act which states that the husband is the head of the family and the main wage earner, while the wife is the household caretaker (Article 31 in conjunction with Article 34) (Katjasungkana, 2013). In certain situations such cultural values and norms can serve to condone and reinforce abusive practices against women (Kim and Motsei, 2002). The study conducted in rural central Java by Hayati et al. (2011) cited earlier, found that women who held ‘traditional’ gender role attitudes were more likely to justify domestic violence and also to have been exposed to physical and sexual violence themselves. Insights from NGOs working with domestic violence victims in Indonesia are useful to demonstrate how male breadwinner ideals are associated with domestic violence. On one hand, the view of husbands as the leader and the breadwinner in the family often mean that there is a gap in the decision-making power between husbands and wives. But on the other hand, the expectations of and for husbands to shoulder the financial responsibilities in the households had been reported to cause emotional stress and anxiety for married men and triggered domestic violence (Tim Unit Khusus Penanganan Kasus SPEK-HAM, 2010). In the SUSENAS data cited earlier, one third of the victims reported economic difficulties as the underlying cause of any types of violence. These insights resonate the idea that domestic violence is a reflection of the deeply entrenched inequality between the sexes as expressed by Catharine MacKinnon (1991, p. 1298): “Like other inequalities, but in its own way, the subordination of women is socially institutionalized, cumulatively and systematically shaping access to human dignity, respect, resources, physical security, credibility, membership in community, speech, and power”. Gender roles are passed on to children from an early age from parents (primary agents) and schools/peers (secondary agents), as well as the media (tertiary agent) (Durkin and Nugent, 1998, cf Furnham et al., 2000, p.2341). As such we might expect that even from an early age, children may display 40


‘traditional’ gender role attitudes, which may also be translated into a level of acceptance of domestic violence. While some information on domestic violence is included in Social Sciences textbooks starting in Year 8 (Supriatna et al., 2007), it is difficult to know how much information children receive about the topic within and outside of the school environment. However, if we assume that children may already have absorbed relatively strong ideas about gender roles, then we can assume that their attitudes towards domestic violence may be similar to the patterns found among adults. 4. DATA AND METHODS

4.1 Data This paper uses data from the 2010 Indonesia Gender and Reproductive Health Survey; a multi-level survey of Grade 6 (N = 1,837) and Grade 12 (N = 6,555) students, their teachers (N = 521) and school principals (N = 59) conducted in Jakarta, West Java, West Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi. These four provinces have contrasting economic, geographic, socio-cultural, and population characteristics. Jakarta, the capital city, is the epitome of ‘modern’ Indonesia. Out of the four provinces, students in Jakarta have the highest likelihood to finish 12 years of education. West Java, is a large province that shares some of its border with Jakarta. Although it has performed relatively well in facets of human development, the province has pockets of disadvantaged districts and population struggling to achieve quality education. West Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi are two provinces in Eastern Indonesia that are relatively less developed compared to the provinces in Java. The sampling of schools was performed in several stages using a sampling procedure designed to include students from a wide variety of backgrounds. At the first stage, two districts were selected in each of the four provinces except for Jakarta, one district in a rural area and one in an urban area. Two general schools and two madrasah (religious) schools were selected in each district that represented the best school (Sekolah Unggulan) and an average performing school (Non-Unggulan). Thus in every province, 16 schools were selected. In the selected schools, all students in Grade 6 or Grade 12 participated in the survey and filled in the self-administered questionnaire in class. In this study we use information from 1,772 Grade 6 students, and 6,502 Grade 12 students who had valid answers to the relevant dependent and independent variables used in the analysis.

41


Table 1 – Sample characteristics

4.2 Analysis Both bivariate and multivariate analysis is used to examine the factors associated with differences in student’s definition of domestic violence. For the bivariate analysis we examine the percentage of students who agreed that a father hitting/verbally abusing a mother was considered to be domestic violence by selected characteristics. For the categorical variables including sex, 42


type of school, school performance and province, the relationship between each variable is tested using a chi-square test of association. The relationship between a student’s gender role attitude (continuous measure) and their understanding of domestic violence is tested using a t-test. For the multivariate analysis, we start with a logistic regression to model how sex, school type, school performance, province and gender role attitudes affect students’ perception of domestic violence. Since we are particularly interested in the mediating effect of gender role attitudes, a decomposition method is employed to disentangle the direct effect of sex, school type, and province on definitions of domestic violence, as well as the indirect effect of these variables that is mediated through gender role attitudes1. The decomposition is achieved using the KHB method proposed by Karlson, Holm and Breen, and implemented with the KHB program in STATA 12.0 (Karlson and Holm, 2011; Breen, Karlson and Holm, 2013). Graphically the decomposition analysis is run on the following model: Figure 1 – Decomposition model

All multivariate analysis is conducted using a pooled sample of Grade 6 and Grade 12 students, as well as separately for each grade. Table 1 gives some information about the main characteristics of Grade 6 and Grade 12 students. 1

If our dependent variable, definition of domestic violence, was continuous and could be modelled using linear regression, then we could have compared the coefficients of the independent variables in a model including gender role attitudes, and in a model where gender role attitudes are omitted to examine how the coefficient of e.g. sex changes when we control for differences in gender role attitudes. Unfortunately, when the outcome variable is binary, as in our case, similar comparisons of coefficients are not possible in the same way because of the scale identification issue (Karlson and Holm, 2011). In logit models the residual variance is fixed, meaning that the scaling of coefficients changes across models, making comparisons across nested models more complex (Mood, 2010).

43


4.2.1 Dependent variables Students in each class were presented with a list of behaviours and were asked to indicate whether it was true or false that the particular behaviour could be regarded as domestic violence. In this paper we focus on two behaviours, “father hits mother” and “father verbally abuses mother”. The two outcomes of interest are whether the students indicate that each of these behaviours constitutes domestic violence2. The variables are dichotomous, with a value of 1 indicating that the student stated that the behaviour was a form of domestic violence, and 0 if they did not believe it was domestic violence. It is important to note that these questions do not directly measure whether students agree whether domestic violence is acceptable or not. Rather the question is aimed at understanding students’ definitions of domestic violence. However given the negative association of the term ‘domestic violence’ (“kekerasan dalam rumah tangga”) defining a particular behaviour such as a father hitting a mother as constituting domestic violence does indirectly entail some sense of moral judgement that the behaviour is unacceptable. 4.2.2 Independent variables Gender role attitude. As outlined earlier, previous studies have indicated that there is a strong link between gender role attitudes and attitudes towards the acceptability of domestic violence. We hypothesize that gender role attitudes will also have a similar strong relationship with regards to definitions of what is considered to be domestic violence. Gender role attitude is measured using a scale created from 17 gender role related questions. The seventeen questions took the form of statements to which students had to indicate whether they agreed, did not agree, or had no opinion. Some statements reflected traditional gender roles, for example “The role of the father is to earn a living, and the role of the mother is to take care of household duties”, whereas others were worded in egalitarian terms such as “Men should also participate in household work (such as cooking and cleaning)”. The items covered a range of gender roles in both the public and private sphere. After reverse coding the traditional gender role items, the final variable was created by giving a score of 1 to students who indicated they agreed to the statement and -1 if they did not agree. Those with no opinion were given a score of zero. The scale ranges from -17 to +17, with a higher number reflecting a more egalitarian gender role perspective. For example, a student with a 2 Although additional statements are available for analysis including responses to questions about mothers hitting and verbally abusing fathers, we chose to focus on these two behaviours since the vast majority of domestic violence involves a male perpetrator and a female victim (Reed et al., 2010).

44


score of 17 agreed with all egalitarian worded statements, and disagreed with all items reflecting traditional gender roles. In line with previous studies (Flood and Pease, 2009), it is hypothesized that students with more egalitarian gender role attitudes are more likely to classify both physical and verbal abuse as constituting domestic violence. Sex. Based on previous research (Flood and Pease, 2009), it is hypothesized that female students are more likely to define both hitting and verbal abuse, by a father directed towards a mother, as constituting domestic violence compared to their male peers. However, at least part of this effect will be mediated by sex differences in gender role attitudes, with girls being more likely to support egalitarian gender role attitudes, which are in turn associated with a higher likelihood of classifying both physical and verbal abuse as domestic violence. Type of school is measured using a dichotomous variable distinguishing between general school and Islamic religious schools (Madrasah). We hypothesize that children in general schools have a broader or more encompassing definition of domestic violence compared to their counterparts in religious schools. School performance. Also included as an independent variable is a binary variable indicating whether the school is a high performing one or an average one. We suggest that students enrolled in high performing schools may have more egalitarian views than their counterparts in the lower performing schools. Province. Children in the less developed provinces in South Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara may also have more traditional gender role attitudes, and therefore be more accepting of domestic violence, compared to children in more developed provinces such as West Java and Jakarta. 5. RESULTS

5.1 Bivariate analysis Overall, a relatively high percentage of students identified that a father hitting a mother constituted domestic violence, as seen in Table 2. However, the percentage of students who classified a particular behaviour as constituting domestic violence varied significantly by both the student’s individual level characteristics as well as by the type and quality of the school they attended and the province they lived in. In determining whether or not behaviour should be classified as domestic violence, age was a particularly important factor. Grade 12 students were considerably more likely to classify both hitting and verbal abuse as constituting domestic violence compared to their younger peers in Grade 6. For both behaviours, girls were more likely to classify them as constituting domestic violence compared with boys. The only exception was in terms 45


of the classification of verbal abuse among Grade 12 students, where no sex difference was found. We also find that across the board, students in general schools were more likely to classify both physical and verbal abuse as constituting domestic violence. The effect of school quality was less consistent. Finally there were large differences by province. By far, students in South Sulawesi were the least likely to say that either physical or verbal abuse could be considered to be domestic violence. For example, among Grade 6 students in Jakarta 76% said that a father hitting a mother was domestic violence, whereas in South Sulawesi only 55% of students felt the same way. Table 2 – Percentage of students that believe behaviour constitutes domestic violence, by grade

Note: Asterisk indicate level of significance as tested using chi-square: * p