Abstract
Violence against women has been one of the most prominent issue and a major public health concern. It is a principle violation of basic human rights and has both physical and mental effect on the victim. This study focuses on married and unmarried girls aged 15 to 19 years, belonging to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India. This study attempts to examine depression level among married and unmarried girls who have faced violence against them. With the unprecedented growth in social networking, online digital platform and its accessibility, the study also brings out the pertinent aspect of internet based violence and its psychological outcome on adolescent girls. Hence, the study can be seen as an important and needed value addition to the existing pool of knowledge on the subject. The study uses Understanding the lives of adolescents and young adults (UDAYA) project data for Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Depressive symptoms among adolescent girl is the outcome variable of the study. Descriptive statistic and bivariate analysis has been used to get to preliminary results. Chi-squared test is used to test the significant of variables. Further, multi-variate analysis (logistic regression) was used. Almost 29, 23 and 26 percent of married adolescent girls had faced emotional, physical and sexual violence respectively. It was found that about five per cent of unmarried and eight per cent of married girls had high depressive symptoms. It was found that unmarried adolescent girls who had witnessed their father beating mother were 71 percent more likely to suffer from higher depressive symptoms [OR: 1.71, 1.09-2.69]. Adolescents who faced perpetrated bullying had 90 per cent [OR: 1.90, 1.32-2.72] and 86 per cent [OR: 1.86, 0.98-3.52] higher likelihood to suffer from higher depressive symptoms. The study goes beyond intimate partner violence and includes various covariates to explain the association between violence and depressive symptoms among married and unmarried adolescents. Hence, more inclusive policies are needed to address the issue of violence against women as the spectrum of the violence is expanding with time.
Highlights
World Health Organization defines violence as “The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual that results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development or deprivation.” The inclusion of word “power” broadens “the conventional understanding of violence include those acts that result from a power relationship, including threats and intimidation” [1]
With the unprecedented growth in social networking, online digital platform and its accessibility, the study brings out the pertinent aspect of internet based violence and its psychological outcome on adolescent girls
It was found that unmarried adolescent girls who had witnessed their father beating mother were 71 percent more likely to suffer from higher depressive symptoms [OR: 1.71, 1.09–2.69]
Summary
No Yes Perpetrated bullying No Yes Age groups (in years) 15–17 18–19 Education level (in years) No education 1–7 8–9 10 & above Place of residence Urban Rural Caste SC/ST OBC Others Religion. Adolescent girls who experienced harassment over mobile phone/internet had higher prevalence of depressive symptoms (unmarried-10% and married-13%). Married girls who had experienced physical violence had 63 per cent higher likelihood to suffer from higher depressive symptoms than their counterparts [OR: 1.63, 1.13–2.35]. Unmarried girls who experienced harassment over mobile phone/internet had 78 per cent higher likelihood to suffer from higher depressive symptoms than who did not experience [OR: 1.78, 1.02– 3.11]. Ten percent of married girls who experienced physical violence and justify wife beating had high depressive symptoms. Results found a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms for unmarried girls who witnessed father ever beating mother and did not justify wife beating. Six percent of unmarried girls who witnessed father ever beating mother and justified wife beating had high depressive symptoms
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