Influence of Domestic Violence on Family Relationships Among Couples
Chapter One
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The aims of the research work are to find out:
- The roles of parents in the resolution of domestic violence in Oshodi.
- The major causes of domestic violence in Oshodi
- The effect of domestic violence on the socio-economic development of Nigeria.
- The role of the federal government intervention on the issue of domestic violence in Nigeria.
- If education help to reduce the effect of domestic violence.
- If the family background have any significant effect on domestic violence in Oshodi.
- The effect of high level of poverty on the level of domestic violence in Nigeria.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Conceptual Framework
This section deals with the explanation of concepts associated with this study. These include:
Concept of Violence
Violence refers to the intentional use of physical force with the potential for causing death, disability, injury, or harm (Saltzman, Fanslow, McMahon, & Shelley, 2002). Violence as defined by the World Health Organizations (2002) is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against agroup or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation. This definition involves intentionality with the committing of the act itself, irrespective of the outcome it produces. Violence includes any condition or act that creates a climate in which the individual feels fear or intimidation in addition to being victims of assault, theft or vandalism (Aluede, 2011). According to MELS (2009), any use of force-verbal, written, physical, psychological or sexual-against any person, by an individual or a group, with intent to directly or indirectly wrong, injure or oppress that person by attacking his or her integrity, psychological or physical well-being, rights or property. This definition describes the elements used to define violent behavior as follows; the aggressors demonstrates power in terms of strength and expresses or shows this power, with the intention to wrong, hurt or oppress someone (himself/herself or someone else), the demonstration of violence may be by an individual or by a group or a community and the violence may be direct or indirect and may involve an intermediary or use means that are disguised or difficult to perceive.
Violence is aggression that has extreme physical harm as its goal, such as injury or death. For instance, one child intentionally pushing another child down is an act of aggression but is not an act of violence. One person intentionally hitting, kicking, shooting or stabbing another person is an act of violence. Thus, all violent acts are aggressive, but not all aggressive acts are violent (Anderson &Huesmann, 2010).
Violence in the context of this present study therefore is any behaviour that is exerted in an injurious, hurtful or damaging way (by a person and against a person) and that exposes such a person to severe harm. It could be found in every domain of social experience. Exposure to violence may occur in different settings, including schools, neighbourhoods, and homes. Married couples can be exposed to violence as victims or witnesses, or both.
Concept of Domestic Violence
Domestic Violence according to World Health Organization (WHO, 2010) is “behaviour within an intimate relationship that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including acts of physical violence, sexual violence, and psychological abuse and controlling behaviours”. Intimate partner violence is used to encompass physical, sexual and psychological violence, or any combination of these acts (Krantz and Garcia-Moreno, 2005). IPV is defined as a pattern of physical, psychological abuse and sexual assault (and threats thereof) from a current or former intimate partner within a context of coercive controls (Breiding, Basile, Smith, Black &Mahendra, 2015).
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (2003) defines IPV as “violence by an intimate partner that may involve hitting, slapping or kicking, emotional or physical threats, or forced sexual relations”. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2009) defines intimate partner violence as “physical violence, sexual violence, threats of physical or sexual violence, and psychological or emotional abuse perpetrated by a current or former spouse, common-law spouse, non-marital dating partners, or boyfriends or girlfriends of the same or opposite sex”. DV has also been referred to as “domestic violence”, “domestic abuse”, “spouse abuse”, “courtship violence”, “battering”, “marital rape”, and “date rape. Intimate partner violence ranges from emotional abuse, such as name calling, to repeated physical or sexual assaults and homicide (Heise and Garcia-Moreno 2002).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter focuses on the research method that was adopted in the study. These include design of the study, area of the study, population of the study, sample and sampling techniques, instrument for data collection, validation of the instrument, reliability of the instrument, method of data collection, and method of data analysis.
Design of the Study
Correlational design was used for this study. According to Nworgu (2015), correlational design seeks to establish what relationship exists between two or more variables.In a correlational study, variables are measured without manipulating them, thereafter, the data is analysed to see whether the variables are related (Oakley, 2010).Therefore, the researcher used this research design because it helped to determine whether socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, employment status and level of educational attainment related to intimate partner violence among couples.
Area of Study
The study was conducted in Oshodi Lagos state. Oshodi is a neighbourhood located in the heart of Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria. It is located in the Ajeromi-Ifelodun local government area of Lagos. In the Zone, some couples live separately for one reason or the other while some live together. For the purpose of this study, only couples living together in the Zone were used for the study in order to generate data from both partners in marriage.
Population of the Study
The population of the study comprised all the registered couples in Oshodi Lagos state, Nigeria from 2010-2015. Records available at the Marriage Registry, Oshodi Lagos state, (2015) showed that there were a total of 8,800 registered couples from 2010-2015.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results
This chapter deals with the presentation of the results of data analyses in the study. Itis arranged based on the research questions and research hypotheses of the study.
Research Question 1: What are the types of intimate partner violence perpetrated among couples?
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, IMPLICATIONS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The focus of this chapter is on the summary of findings, conclusion, and recommendations.
Summary of Findings
The study was conducted to investigate the causes and effects of domestic violence in Oshodi Lagos State, Nigeria. Correlational design was used in the study with the population of all the registered couples in Oshodi Lagos State, Nigeria from 2010-2015. The sample of the study was 500 couples from the study area. The sample was selected through a multi-stage sampling procedure. The instrument for data collection was entitled: Domestic Violence Questionnaire (DVQ) developed by the researcher. The instrument was validated by one expert in Guidance and Counselling, one in Educational Psychology, and one in Measurement and Evaluation and yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.80. The data for the study was collected through direct delivery and retrieval of the questionnaires to the couples. Pearson product moment correlation was used to answer the research questions, while regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.
The results obtained showed that Nigerian couples are faced with three different types of domestic violence which are: physical violence, psychological violence and sexual violence; age of the couples and their employment status were the socio-demographic factors that significantly correlate with domestic violence among couples; and that gender and educational status did not correlate with domestic violence significantly.
Conclusion
The increasing rate of domestic violence in Nigeria has ignited researches that geared toward finding out the possible correlates of the menace. Unfortunately, the researches recorded so far are full of inconsistent results. However, the current study demonstrated that Nigerian couples are faced with three different types of domestic violence which are: physical violence, psychological violence and sexual violence. The study has established that, in these three types of domestic violence, the age of the couples and their employment status were the socio-demographic factors that significantly correlate with intimate partner violence among couples. Other factors like gender and educational status did not correlate with domestic violence significantly. Thus, based on this conclusion, the implications, recommendations and suggestions for further study are therefore drawn in this study based on this conclusion.
Recommendations
- Couples should cooperate with each other to ensure that physical, psychological and sexual needs of each partner in the marriage are achieved. In other words, each partner should play his or her role effectively to make sure the other partner meet his or her physical, psychological and sexual needs.
- Couples should upgrade each partner’s educational status instead of criticizing it. They should not allow low or high statuses of education to cripple their marriages since educational status does not correlate with intimate partner violence.
- Age should be taken into consideration by the intending couples before they reach the final decision to marry. Intending couples should establish satisfaction with each partners’ age and the satisfaction be maintained through the marriage.
- The role of each gender in the marriage should be clearly specified and followed. This is because, even though gender does not correlate significantly with DV, there might be tendency that if the couples are not performing their roles effectively they will experience the menace.
- The couples should always appreciate each partner’s employment status and in case of any dissatisfaction, they should work together to upgrade the status. Also, intending couples should establish satisfaction with their employment status before they reach the final decision to marry.
- Pre-marital and marital counselling should be provided to students in secondary schools and high institutions.
- Marriage seminars and workshops should be organized in strategic positions for both married and unmarried individuals.
- Every organization that confirms marriages such as families, religious groups, hospitals, courts etc. should ensure that their clients pass through marital counselling with professional marriage counsellors.
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