4.3 MAIN FINDINGS
4.3.1 What is Intimate Partner Violence?
Understandings of IPV are multifaceted. While most people who have studied it come to the conclusion that it involves physical, sexual, emotional or psychological, and economic abuse (WHO, 2012); the participants‟ understandings were limited. Most of the participants initially understood IPV as equivalent to physical violence. For this reason, they regarded physical abuse as the leading kind of violence in relationships. When asked about the perpetrators of IPV, most participants listed that it was mostly men who inflict partner violence using words such as beating and hitting which showed that IPV was attributed to physicality.
“Men. That is why even in relationships when couples fight, men tend to become angrier and end up hitting women.” –Ntombcele
“It‟s men. They physically abuse women because they are stronger, use harsh words, and put pressure on women.” –Mbali
“It‟s mostly men because they are violent. I‟ve never heard of a girl hitting a boy in my community and at res. It‟s always men.” –Sammy
“Men. Boys are also taught that a woman is straightened up by a beating.” – Malondana
After I had provided a broader explanation about what IPV entailed; the participants were able to provide more information regarding other forms of intimate partner violence, such as emotional, economic, and sexual abuse. Sexual abuse was rife among partners in a relationship which highlights the issue of sexual entitlement often pressurised by men.
Women who are usually the victims feel obliged to submit to forced sex without realising that it is a violation. The following participants provided information on sexual abuse at the residences:
“A friend has told me of her boyfriend forcing himself on her after she refused to have sex with him. The boyfriend‟s reasoning was that they are already in a relationship.” –Mbali
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“If he wants to sleep with you, you would only agree because you feel you owe him not because you want to.” –Sho
Emotional abuse among partners was also a problem at residences. Participants highlighted that it involved humiliating, stalking, jealousy, and force in the continuation of a relationship. Female students had to bear emotional scars that affected not only their self- esteem but also their studies.
“My neighbour‟s boyfriend at res is like that. When he tells her to come back from campus with the 13:00 bus, she does, even if she still has lectures to attend later. That girl even failed two modules in her first year. She couldn‟t attend lectures appropriately since she wasn‟t allowed to come back after 19:00. It was difficult for her.” –Mbali
“On the last day of teaching practice, some guy was drunk and was busy humiliating his girlfriend in front of everyone. He was saying bad things about her that he didn‟t want her anymore and he has had enough sex with her.” – Rose
“He is very jealous, and they fight all the time. The girl wants to take a break from him, but he refuses.” –Neliswa
“I was involved with a student who wanted to see me all the time. If he didn‟t find me in my room, he would become aggressive and want to know my whereabouts.”
-BJ
Some students from FGDs spoke about the lack of knowledge regarding emotional abuse including the lack of services on campus that deal with it. This unawareness made students to withhold information thereby, creating room for the abuse to continue.
“Emotional abuse is not easy to report. There is this acquaintance of mine (the one I was talking about earlier who was being beaten by her boyfriend) that went to get a protection order against her boyfriend. She said that she didn‟t want him to abuse her emotionally. The protection order stated clearly that he should restrain from using vulgar words. This is so rare. We just know that a person can hit you or do bad things to you - we are unaware about the use of words to abuse one emotionally. We usually just keep things inside.” -Khazimula
“Is it?” -Me
“Or that I will only tell Abenathi (one person) and that is it.” -Khazimula
“Why though, why don‟t people report emotional abuse?” -Me
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“There is lack of knowledge”. –Khazimula and Abenathi
“Especially here on campus. There is a lack of staff. There is a room for counselling by the clinic but they only counsel people testing for HIV. If you seek counselling regarding other things they just tell you to come back at another time, its lunch-time, etc., until you give up.” –Abenathi
Participants also provided an understanding of financial abuse and cited that female student are more obliged to provide material support in the relationship if they have more funding. Girls succumb to pressure to avoid conflict and rejection.
“There‟s this jealousy that is happening on campus among couples. If one of them has more funding than the other (it seems the girls usually have more funding than their boyfriends) it becomes an issue. Boys usually have a problem with this and girls feel they have to do more to become equal. Girls then buy them clothes, buy food and do other things for them and they don‟t see how they are being abused.” –BJ
“Partners also fight because of money issues. You find that they get different amounts of money from home and the one with less expects you with more to do more things.” –Sho
“Financial abuse also happens at res whereby a male was demanding money from a female for alcohol purposes. We have funding and people know. The girl had funding from Fundza and the guy knew that it pays more money than NSFAS.” –Pearl
The participants were aware of power dynamics that exist in relationships and talking about it created more awareness.
“..although I was focused much on physical and sexual abuse, I wasn‟t aware that boys from here abuse girls that are funded by Fundza.” –Imani
During the above interviews and discussions, the participants showed varying knowledge in defining IPV which could have adverse effects on people often resulting in underreporting. Because of the less known forms of IPV such as emotional and financial abuse, there were also implications of not receiving adequate assistance. The participants were more aware of physical and sexual violence. Abrahams and Watts (2013) also found that most research focuses on physical and sexual violence to the exclusion of other forms of violence, which significantly has an adverse impact on quality and comparability of data (WHO, 2012). However, I provided some information on the forms of IPV, participants became more aware of the violence that occurred around them and could, therefore,
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express themselves better and hopefully report on such issues in the future. This was an indication that more awareness on IPV was essential in residences.
The following theme explains about how gender roles were constructed and how they were linked to IPV.