Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2018 Feb;198:112-120. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.12.032. Epub 2017 Dec 26.
Sexual violence is both a major human rights issue and an important driver of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa. While quantitative indicators of sexual violence have evolved to facilitate cross-national comparison and country-level decision making, qualitative findings typically remain constrained to single sites and populations. We analyzed social representations of sexual violence, specifically rape, in a sample of 1446 narratives about HIV written by young Africans between 2005 and 2014. The narratives were written at 5 discrete time points (2005, 2008, 2011, 2013 and 2014) by equal numbers of males and females aged 10-24 in urban and rural areas of Swaziland, Kenya, South-East Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Senegal. We combined three analytical approaches: descriptive statistics of quantifiable characteristics of the narratives, thematic data analysis, and a narrative-based approach. Violent rapes by strangers occur in all country samples, but in Nigerian narratives the 'immoral' behavior of female characters facilitates these attacks. Swazi narratives, in contrast, often depict familial rapes that include disclosure and service seeking as key components of the rape scenario. The social representations found in the narrative data reflect rape myths, which, at the socio-cultural level, serve to trivialize sexual violence by minimizing or justifying aggression, thus shifting blame to victims and absolving perpetrators of blame. Additionally, these social representations conflict with self-report data from Violence Against Children surveys conducted in Swaziland (2007), Kenya (2010) and Nigeria (2014) in that they depict perpetrators primarily as strangers or family members as opposed to romantic partners; however, social representations and self-report concur regarding barriers to disclosure and service seeking for victims. The Swazi narratives offer potential models for the framing of sexual violence in ways that promote disclosure and support for survivors and counteract harmful rape myths.
性暴力既是一个重大的人权问题，也是撒哈拉以南非洲艾滋病毒感染的一个重要驱动因素。虽然性暴力的定量指标已经发展到便于跨国比较和国家一级决策的程度，但定性研究结果通常仍然局限于单个地点和人群。我们分析了性暴力（特别是强奸）的社会代表性，具体分析了 2005 年至 2014 年间非洲青年撰写的 1446 篇关于艾滋病毒的叙述。这些叙述是在斯威士兰、肯尼亚、尼日利亚东南部、布基纳法索和塞内加尔的城市和农村地区，由年龄在 10 至 24 岁之间的男女各半，在 5 个不同时间点（2005 年、2008 年、2011 年、2013 年和 2014 年）撰写的。我们结合了三种分析方法：叙述内容的可量化特征的描述性统计分析、主题数据分析和基于叙述的方法。在所有国家的样本中都发生了陌生人的暴力强奸，但在尼日利亚的叙述中，女性角色的“不道德”行为为这些攻击提供了便利。相比之下，斯威士兰的叙述常常描绘了包括披露和寻求服务在内的家庭强奸，这是强奸场景的关键组成部分。叙述数据中发现的社会代表性反映了强奸神话，在社会文化层面上，强奸神话通过最小化或为攻击行为辩护来淡化性暴力，从而将责任归咎于受害者，使犯罪者免受指责。此外，这些社会代表性与在斯威士兰（2007 年）、肯尼亚（2010 年）和尼日利亚（2014 年）进行的《暴力侵害儿童调查》中的自我报告数据相冲突，因为它们描述的犯罪者主要是陌生人或家庭成员，而不是浪漫伴侣；然而，叙述和自我报告在受害者的披露和服务寻求障碍方面是一致的。斯威士兰的叙述为以促进披露和支持幸存者以及抵制有害强奸神话的方式构建性暴力提供了潜在的模式。
