Assessment of the Role of Social Media in Raising Awareness About Domestic Violence in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
The objective of this study is to assess the role of social media in raising awareness about domestic violence in Nigeria. However, the specific objectives are:
- To study the various types of social media available in raising awareness on domestic violence in Nigeria
- To determine how social media has helped in creating awareness on domestic violence in Nigeria
- To identify the ethical principles that must be considered by social media in creating awareness on domestic violence
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Definitions and forms of violence against women
Definitions of what constitutes violence against women tend to differ according to the context in which it is being investigated. For example, the legal sector, researchers, advocates and service providers often define the problem in different ways. These range from broad-based definitions that include “structural violence”, such as restricted access to health care and education (UNICEF, 2000), to more narrow, legalistic definitions that focus onspecific behaviours consistent with criminal offending (Chung, 2013). Legislative Acts of Parliament in each state and territory in Nigeria (e.g. Victoria’s Family Violence Protection Act 2008; Tasmania’s Family Violence Act 2004; Western Nigeria’s Restraining Orders Act 1997) define both behaviours and the relationships in which those behaviours occur to enable protections under law (Department of Families Housing Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, 2009). These definitions do not always align with community knowledge and understandings of what constitutes violence against women and their children.
Although there is no single nationally or internationally agreed definition, the one adopted by the United Nations (UN) over 20 years ago is among the most commonly used. The UN’s Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women defines violence against women as: “…any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life” (United Nations, 1993).
In Nigeria, the terms domestic violence, intimate partner violence and family violence are often used interchangeably. Collectively, they refer to a range of behaviours that are violent, threatening, coercive or controlling that occur within current or past family or intimate relationships. These behaviours are overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women and include direct and indirect threats of physical assault, sexual assault, emotional and psychological torment, economic control, social isolation and any behaviour that results in women living in fear.
The term family violence is often used to describe violence perpetrated against women by family members in addition to the use of violence by intimate partners. Use of the term family violence also reflects Indigenous communities’ preference because it signifies the broader impacts of violence on extended families, kinship and social networks and community relationships (Cripps & Davis, 2012).
Non-partner violence against women generally refers to women’s experience of physical and/or sexual assault by a person that is not a former or current intimate partner since the age of 15.
Gender equivalence
The UN’s definition of violence against women appropriately recognises that violence is “gendered”. Taking this approach is not designed to ignore or diminish men’s experiences of violence. Men experience substantial amounts of interpersonal violence in Nigeria, some within the context of intimate partner relationships. Despite recent campaigns in Nigeria and overseas, such as One in Three (www.oneinthree.com.au) that seek to highlight men as victims, the evidence suggests that men who report being a victim of domestic violence are also perpetrators of violence (Domestic Violence Death Review Team, 2015).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The study mainly consists of qualitative research work. The primary objective of the qualitative research was to represent data collected through the study of a small number of in–depth cases (O’Leary 2010). It was also used for working with a few people who hold answer to the research question rather than working with many people.
This study adopted the descriptive research design of survey type. This type of design allows the researcher to use a sub set of a population as sample (Nworgu, 2006). It also, allows the use of questionnaire for collection of data from respondents (Fwang‟le, 2015) and attempts to describe all aspects of respondents‟ perception and/or opinion (Nwanna, 1990). The choice of the above research design was therefore considered appropriate in this study because the data was collected from a sample representative of the population who are adults in Ikeja, Lagos.
Population of the Study
The target population for this study consists of all the male and female adults living in Ikeja, Lagos. The population size is about 1200.
Sample Size and Sampling Technique
Purposeful sampling technique was used for the sample selection due to the type of information needed for the study, adults were sampled out for this study in order to get adequate information for the research work. The sample was calculated using the Taro – Yamane (1967) simplified formula for finite population proportions. The sample size for the study using the Yaro Yamane formular.
The correspondents available for the research were 142 adults living in Ikeja.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION
Socio-demographic data of respondents
The demographic data obtained in the study from the students is analysed using frequency and percentage. This is presented as follows.
Table 4.2 shows the distribution of respondents by their age ranges. Of the total number of 142 adults being questioned, 22.5% were between 25-32 years, while 45.8% were between 33-40 years and 31.7 were between 41- 48 years.
This table shows that most of the adults questioned were between the age of 33 to 40 years.
CHAPTER FIVE
RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION
Recommendation
Access to social media platforms such as facebook and twitter should be available in households for information purposes and learning.
Awareness programmes should be conducted for both women and men. It should be done by using the resources like nurses, doctors and psychologists, working under governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This could easily be done either by direct or indirect teaching. The direct methods would include one to one teaching, counseling, or group based teaching. Indirect methods would involve the use of media, pamphlets, role plays, drama and talk shows.
There should be religious definitions of the basic rights of women like autonomy and freedom in Nigeria on federal levels and the government needs to evaluate all of the basic rights of women. For this a central committee can be made which should include religious leaders, Ulema, and scholars who can consensually define the rights of women in the lights of Islamic teaching and literature. But, for this the other ethnic and minority religious groups should be considered when finalizing any package for basic rights of women.
Government should also ensure that every citizen of the country is following the main themes defined by the religious committee.
Government should to make sure that women have enough access to reach any political opportunity and there should be a training programme available for their capacity building on politics.
There should be enough educational programs in all societies and cultures, both for women and men at the same levels.
There should be enough opportunities of employments and participation in political parties along with security and safety for women and the seat allocation for recruitments of both genders should be considered on equality grounds. More funds should be allocated to women’s development in the country.
There is also a need of reforms in the police departments and judicial processes which place constraints on women from accessing justice. Women police should be trained to deal with women facing domestic violence so that women could feel safe and protected. Indeed the presence of a nurse or doctor in the police department team would facilitate a pleasant environment for the sufferers.
Exclusive celebrations of marriages were banned in the country some years ago and that worked very effectively through the country. Similarly government can also ban weighty dowry systems in different cultures, and fix certain amount in the lights of Islamic religious teachings which should be followed in any culture and in any region of the country.
Government should develop recreational programs like family parks, and other entertaining places where women along with their family can enjoy and relax.
Conclusion
In today’s heavily mediated society, all forms of social media has the ability to reach increasingly more people than ever before. The study on media coverage of the rape of a woman on a bus in Delhi in 2012 showed how quickly a local story can become global. News of the incident spread globally through professional media sources within just 2 days (Phillips et al., 2015). The story resonated in communities far from India showing the unpreceded capacity of today’s media to influence public perceptions that violence against women is neither exceptional nor acceptable.
While many factors are known to influence public perceptions about violence against women, in this state of knowledge paper we examined the role of news media– a dominant force in shaping the discourse on matters of public importance. We found that media representation studies dominate research in the area. Collectively, these studies illustrate that the media frequently mirrors society’s confusion and ambivalence about violence against women. Although the link between media reporting and behaviour is not well-established, studies of audience influence show that social media can play a role in dispelling myths and reinforcing information about the true nature and extent of the problem.
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