Scale and forms of domestic violence against schoolchildren in rural, rural-urban and urban areas

Abstract

Introduction In 2017, the third cyclical study on the scale of domestic violence against schoolchildren and youth in one of the rural communes of the Western Pomerania (Poland) was carried out. The study took into account five forms of violence: mental, physical, neglect, economic and sexual. Previous two editions of the study covered urban-rural (2016) and urban gminas (2015). Material and methods The research concept was implemented by means of the representative research method, with the use of auditing questionnaire interview technique, based on a research tool developed on the basis of a number of previous qualitative research and quantitative tests to measure the social scale of domestic violence. Results Domestic violence against minors reaches 48.2% in the rural area under study, 51.8% in the urban-rural area and 65.5% in the urban area. In all types of areas the most frequent form of violence is psychological violence, it affects 42.4% of children in rural gminas, 51.3% in urban-rural and 60.5% in urban gminas. In reference to other, less frequent forms of violence, there is also a difference in scale due to the area type. Conclusions The incidence of individual forms of domestic violence varies depending on the type of area: Psychological violence: rural areas – 42.4%, urban-rural – 51.3%, urban areas – 60.5%; Neglect: rural areas – 21.1%, urban-rural – 13.5%, urban areas – 22.3%; Physical violence: rural areas – 17.1%, urban-rural – 20.7%, urban areas – 29.4%; Economic violence: rural areas – 12.6%, urban-rural – 19.2%, urban areas – 29.3%; Sexual violence: rural areas – 3.2%, urban-rural – 3.6%, urban areas – 8.1%.

Keywords

• domestic violence
• child abuse
• adolescents
• rural areas
• physical violence
• psychological violence
• sexual violence
• physical neglect
• psychological neglect
• family violence