AWARENESS ON ABUSE AGAINST WOMEN – A SURVEY
*Anjali Sukumar Varma, & **Neelima Ranjith
*Post-graduate Student, Research & Post Graduate Department of Psychology, Union Christian College, Aluva, Kerala, Inda.
**Assistant Professor, Research & Post Graduate Department of Psychology, Union Christian College, Aluva, Kerala, Inda.
Abstract
The study aims to explore the awareness on four types of abuse, Physical, Sexual, Verbal and Economic, among people between the ages 20-60 years, with diverse educational qualifications, and Socio-economic status. Abuse involves interactions in cruel, violent, demeaning, or invasive manner. Survey method was adopted, with 823 participants. Analysis included estimating the frequency and percentage of people having high, moderate and low awareness across the different dimensions of abuse. 65.5%, 65.5%, 52.6%, 67.6% of participants had awareness on physical, sexual, verbal and economic abuse respectively. The awareness on the four types of abuse is considerably low among those having low educational qualification, and those belonging to a rural background. Higher level of awareness was also seen in people from upper class and middle class, compared to people from lower class. There was higher percentage of people having low awareness on economic abuse (2.2%), when compared to those in other types of abuse. The percentage of people having awareness was the least for verbal abuse (52%), compared to physical (64%), and sexual (65.5%) forms of abuse.
Keywords
awareness, physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal/emotional abuse, economic/ financial abuse.