The Influence of Stakeholder Involvement on the Prevalence of Gender Based Violence in Bunghokho Sub-County Mbale District:

Abstract

This study “The influence of stakeholder involvement on the prevalence of Gender Based Violence” was undertaken to establish the level of stakeholder involvement on the prevalence of GBV in Bungokho sub-County Mbale district. The study established that there was poor help seeking behavior. 62.6% of the respondents report not having asked for help in solving their conflicts with their spouse/intimate partner. In addition to that 67.2% have not told anyone about a physical encounter they have had with their spouse. Those who are willing to tell (62.6%) of their suffering were not being treated well especially by health care workers. Findings showed that that the magnitude of physical and sexualized violence was high given that it occurs quite often. Overall 73.08% of the respondents often see/hear of a man and woman fighting. Gender Based violence is mostly perpetrated by persons who have had or are having a relationship. 42 % of the respondents report having been physically assaulted by a spouse, 33.6% by a boyfriend/girlfriend and 16.8 % by an ex-spouse. Child sexual abuse was also common. 54.4% of the respondents reported having been abused when young. There exists a strong relationship between stakeholder involvement and prevalence of gender based violence. 53% of those sexually abused when young do not care about what happens to them. This permissive behaviour encourages the perpetration of violence which increases the prevalence of Gender based Violence. A sexually abused child is 13 [OR 12.76 (95%CI:7.40, 22.01, p<0.001)] times more likely to do nothing in future when he sees someone beating the partner because of the view that it is a private matter than one who has not been sexually abused. Failure to punish offenders of domestic violence increases twenty times [OR 19.57 (95%CI: 9.91, 38.63, p<0.001)] the chance of being physical abused. 60.7% of respondents showed that persons who had experienced violence were subjected to attacks previously committed on them. 40.5% are repeatedly attacked by their intimate partners/spouses because nothing was done to punish the offender. The level of stakeholder involvement is still very low and such low involvement cannot have a positive influence on the reduction of the prevalence of GBV. Response and prevention of Gender Based Violence must involve all stakeholders. The level of commitment of stakeholders to ending Gender based violence is crucial to any intervention that seeks to eliminate it.Efforts should be harmonized among the stakeholders so that it is easy to identify gaps that arise as a result of impunity. In future studies should aim at exploring ways in which preventive efforts from different stakeholders can be unified to prevent incidences of Gender Based Violence. Evidence from this study showed that men are increasingly becoming victims of Gender Based Violence. Future studies should use larger samples that are more representative of the larger population to determine the contribution of female perpetrators of violence to the overall prevalence of Gender Based Violence.