Violence against adolescent girls and young women reported in Turkish newspapers, before one year and in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Although the negative health consequences on human being caused by the Covid-19 pandemic is reported by the news media globally, its role is not well understood in countries like Turkey. This study provides an assessment over time of the events of Turkish newspaper media reported physical, sexual and lethal violence against adolescent girls and young women. Data for the study was collected through newspaper media reports on physical, sexual and lethal violence that published between March 2019 and March 2021, before one year and in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 483 (15.3%) of 3165 newspaper media reports the victims were under the age of 18 and the mean age was 13.0±4.5 years. During the study period, physical violence caused by an intimate partner has significantly raised (from 32.6% in 2020 to 40.6% in 2021). Logistic regression analysis also showed that being an intimate partner was the only factor associated with physical violence (OR = 8.1, 95% CI 5.21-12.60, p < 0.001). Given the prevalence of intimate partner violence in Turkey, newspaper media reports highlighting vital issues that may arise during the Covid-19 pandemic can be a good monitoring tool in a low-resource setting. In raising of the public and policymakers’ awareness about the danger consequences of violence against adolescent girls caused by an intimate partner, capacity building of the news media might be a useful approach on this issue.