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CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is defined in Article 1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (UN DEVAW) 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). Though limited in scope because it only addresses GBV against women (thus, used interchangeably with Violence against women), this definition helps provide some useful insight into the concept of gender based violence. GBV can also be acts of violence, sexual or otherwise which plays on gender norms and gender exclusions to break people down both physically and emotionally (El Jack, 2003). Thus, GBV can be understood as a general term used to capture violence that occurs as a result of the normative role expectations associated with each gender, along with the unequal power relationships between the two genders, within the context of a specific society (Bloom, 2008).
Forms of GBV encompasses, but is not limited to, the following: Physical, sexual and psychological violence that occurs in the family including battery, sexual abuse of children in the household, dowry related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other harmful traditional practices, non-spousal violence and violence related to exploitation. Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community includes: rape, sexual harassment and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere; trafficking and forced prostitution. Violence perpetrated or condoned by the state, wherever it occurs (United Nations, 1993).
It is necessary to know that violence is not attributable to cases involving women alone as all groups of people can be subjected to violence. Men are not seen as being as susceptible to sexual violence as women, hence medical and social workers may not pay as much attention to detecting signs of sexual violence as they otherwise might (Tienhoven, 1993.; Oosterhoff et al, 2004). Those that are and do may focus on male rape to the exclusion of other forms of male violence due to their familiarity with female violence, which often takes the form of rape (Carlson,2006).
Decades of research have established that both men and women are capable of sustaining GBV from the opposite-sex in the various forms that exist. For example, a good number of individuals arrested for domestic violence each year in the United States of America are females (Miller, 2005). Another study conducted in Tennessee found that 16% of those arrested for intimate partner violence were females (Feder et al, 2005). However, in-depth analysis of this GBV against men seems to be a neglected research area. This, most researchers attribute to the assumption that the abuse men experience are trivial or humorous and of no consequences and that if their abuse was severe enough, they have both the financial and psychological resources to easily leave any relationship within which such abuse is experienced ( Hineset al, 2010). Furthermore, GBV against males by females is said to be motivated by fear, self-defence, defence of children and most commonly as a form of retribution for a perceived wrong-doing by the male partner (Swan et al, 2008). Nonetheless, the greater burden of GBV and the consequences therefore are said to be borne by the females as most authors typically argue that, because GBV is an issue of men maintaining power and control over women, it is not possible for women to be perpetrators of GBV.
Nigeria is said to be a patriarchal society made up of individuals from different ethnic groups and upbringings with regards to gender and gender-based issues. This Patriarchal System leads to, in some quarters, a high regard for the male gender over the female gender. Given this diversity in ideology, a Nigerian University can be said to be a microcosm of the Nigerian Society since it brings together individuals from the said diverse background into a common study environment. The education and training of these students take place in this multicultural and multi-ethnic environments where students from different social, economic, gender, age, class and religious backgrounds mix in pursuit of learning. This fact affects the knowledge, expectations, attitudes, behaviour, emotional and social intelligence of the students (Iliyasu et al, 2011.), and by extension, the ways they relate with each other.
GENDER BASED VIOLENCE AMONG MALE AND FEMALE UNDERGRADUATES OF UNIVERSITY OF CALABAR, CROSS RIVER STATE NIGERIA.
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