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Rejection, acceptance and the spectrum between: understanding male attitudes and experiences towards conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

BACKGROUND: Female survivors of sexual violence in conflict experience not only physical and psychological sequelae from the event itself, but often many negative social outcomes, such as rejection and ostracisation from their families and community. Male relatives – whether husbands, fathers, broth...

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Autores principales: Kelly, Jocelyn, Albutt, Katherine, Kabanga, Justin, Anderson, Kimberley, VanRooyen, Michael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5721471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29221482
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-017-0479-7
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author Kelly, Jocelyn
Albutt, Katherine
Kabanga, Justin
Anderson, Kimberley
VanRooyen, Michael
author_facet Kelly, Jocelyn
Albutt, Katherine
Kabanga, Justin
Anderson, Kimberley
VanRooyen, Michael
author_sort Kelly, Jocelyn
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Female survivors of sexual violence in conflict experience not only physical and psychological sequelae from the event itself, but often many negative social outcomes, such as rejection and ostracisation from their families and community. Male relatives – whether husbands, fathers, brothers – play a key role in determining how the family and community respond to a survivor of sexual violence. Understanding these perspectives could help improve services for survivors of sexual violence, as well as their families and communities. METHODS: This study draws on qualitative data gathered from focus groups of 68 men in the eastern region of Democratic Republic of Congo. Men were asked about their experiences as relatives of women who had experienced sexual violence. RESULTS: Two dominant themes arose throughout the focus groups: factors driving rejection and pathways to acceptance. Factors driving rejection included: fear of sexually transmitted infections, social stigma directed toward the husbands themselves, and an understanding of marriage and fidelity that is incompatible with rape. Men also touched on their own trauma, including struggling with witnessing a rape that took place in public, or caring for a survivor with a child from rape. They noted that the economic burden of medical treatment for survivors was a salient factor in the decision to reject. Pathways to acceptance included factors such as the love of their spouse or relative, survivors’ potential to give continued financial contribution to the family, the need to keep the family together to care for children in the home, and pressure from people of importance in the community. CONCLUSION: This study provides unique insight into how male relatives respond to close family members who have experienced sexual violence. This is particularly critical since the reaction of a male relative after rape can be the most pivotal factor in promoting or impeding recovery for a survivor. These results emphasise the importance of services that focus not only on the survivor of violence herself, but also on key family members that can ideally help support her recovery. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12905-017-0479-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-57214712017-12-11 Rejection, acceptance and the spectrum between: understanding male attitudes and experiences towards conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Kelly, Jocelyn Albutt, Katherine Kabanga, Justin Anderson, Kimberley VanRooyen, Michael BMC Womens Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Female survivors of sexual violence in conflict experience not only physical and psychological sequelae from the event itself, but often many negative social outcomes, such as rejection and ostracisation from their families and community. Male relatives – whether husbands, fathers, brothers – play a key role in determining how the family and community respond to a survivor of sexual violence. Understanding these perspectives could help improve services for survivors of sexual violence, as well as their families and communities. METHODS: This study draws on qualitative data gathered from focus groups of 68 men in the eastern region of Democratic Republic of Congo. Men were asked about their experiences as relatives of women who had experienced sexual violence. RESULTS: Two dominant themes arose throughout the focus groups: factors driving rejection and pathways to acceptance. Factors driving rejection included: fear of sexually transmitted infections, social stigma directed toward the husbands themselves, and an understanding of marriage and fidelity that is incompatible with rape. Men also touched on their own trauma, including struggling with witnessing a rape that took place in public, or caring for a survivor with a child from rape. They noted that the economic burden of medical treatment for survivors was a salient factor in the decision to reject. Pathways to acceptance included factors such as the love of their spouse or relative, survivors’ potential to give continued financial contribution to the family, the need to keep the family together to care for children in the home, and pressure from people of importance in the community. CONCLUSION: This study provides unique insight into how male relatives respond to close family members who have experienced sexual violence. This is particularly critical since the reaction of a male relative after rape can be the most pivotal factor in promoting or impeding recovery for a survivor. These results emphasise the importance of services that focus not only on the survivor of violence herself, but also on key family members that can ideally help support her recovery. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12905-017-0479-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-12-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5721471/ /pubmed/29221482 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-017-0479-7 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Kelly, Jocelyn
Albutt, Katherine
Kabanga, Justin
Anderson, Kimberley
VanRooyen, Michael
Rejection, acceptance and the spectrum between: understanding male attitudes and experiences towards conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
title Rejection, acceptance and the spectrum between: understanding male attitudes and experiences towards conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
title_full Rejection, acceptance and the spectrum between: understanding male attitudes and experiences towards conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
title_fullStr Rejection, acceptance and the spectrum between: understanding male attitudes and experiences towards conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
title_full_unstemmed Rejection, acceptance and the spectrum between: understanding male attitudes and experiences towards conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
title_short Rejection, acceptance and the spectrum between: understanding male attitudes and experiences towards conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
title_sort rejection, acceptance and the spectrum between: understanding male attitudes and experiences towards conflict-related sexual violence in eastern democratic republic of congo
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5721471/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29221482
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-017-0479-7
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