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"Women Violence against Liberia."
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Searching for Normal in the Wake of the Liberian War
At the end of Liberia's thirteen-year civil war, the devastated population struggled to rebuild their country and come to terms with their experiences of violence. During the first decade of postwar reconstruction, hundreds of humanitarian organizations created programs that were intended to heal trauma, prevent gendered violence, rehabilitate former soldiers, and provide psychosocial care to the transitioning populace. But the implementation of these programs was not always suited to the specific mental health needs of the population or easily reconciled with the broader aims of reconstruction and humanitarian peacekeeping, and psychiatric treatment was sometimes ignored or unevenly integrated into postconflict humanitarian health care delivery.
Searching for Normal in the Wake of the Liberian Warexplores the human experience of the massive apparatus of trauma-healing and psychosocial interventions during the first five years of postwar reconstruction. Sharon Alane Abramowitz draws on extensive fieldwork among the government officials, humanitarian leaders, and an often-overlooked population of Liberian NGO employees to examine the structure and impact of the mental health care interventions, in particular the ways they were promised to work with peacekeeping and reconstruction, and how the reach and effectiveness of these promises can be measured. From this courageous ethnography emerges a geography of trauma and the ways it shapes the lives of those who give and receive care in postwar Liberia.
eBook
Prevalence and Correlates of Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Liberia: Findings from 2019–2020 Demographic and Health Survey
Background: Intimate partner violence is a global public health crisis and a human rights issue. The objectives of the study were to conduct secondary analysis of the most recent Liberia Demographic and Health Survey (2019–2020) to determine the descriptive and analytical epidemiology of intimate partner violence (IPV) and its correlates in 15–49 year old ever-married women. Methods: Association of physical, emotional, sexual, and having experienced any type of IPV with 10 explanatory socio-demographic, attitudinal, and experiences were analyzed using simple and multiple logistic regression models. Results: 55.29% of women reported having ever experienced some form of IPV perpetrated by their current or most recent husband/partner, with the most common type being physical violence. Having been slapped, insulted, made to feel bad, and physically forced into unwanted sex were the most common types of physical, emotional, and sexual IPV. The multivariable analysis showed statistically significant association with IPV for number of living children, women’s acceptance of IPV, husband/partner’s use of alcohol, and having witnessed parental physical IPV. Conclusions: The prevalence of having experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in Liberia was much higher than the prevalence for the WHO Africa region of 33%, highlighting the need for better women empowerment and gender equality in Liberia.
Journal Article
A comparative study of machine learning algorithms for predicting domestic violence vulnerability in Liberian women
Domestic violence against women is a prevalent in Liberia, with nearly half of women reporting physical violence. However, research on the biosocial factors contributing to this issue remains limited. This study aims to predict women’s vulnerability to domestic violence using a machine learning approach, leveraging data from the Liberian Demographic and Health Survey (LDHS) conducted in 2019–2020.
We employed seven machine learning algorithms to achieve this goal, including ANN, KNN, RF, DT, XGBoost, LightGBM, and CatBoost. Our analysis revealed that the LightGBM and RF models achieved the highest accuracy in predicting women’s vulnerability to domestic violence in Liberia, with 81% and 82% accuracy rates, respectively. One of the key features identified across multiple algorithms was the number of people who had experienced emotional violence.
These findings offer important insights into the underlying characteristics and risk factors associated with domestic violence against women in Liberia. By utilizing machine learning techniques, we can better predict and understand this complex issue, ultimately contributing to the development of more effective prevention and intervention strategies.
Highlights
Chi-square association was used to determine the significant factors for Domestic violence (DV) in Liberia by using LDHS 2019–20 data.
LightGBM and RF performed the best of all seven machine learning models, with the highest accuracy and F1 score.
Victims of emotional violence were the most important feature of almost every model.
Journal Article
Intimate partner violence and associated factors among reproductive age women in Liberia: a cross-sectional study using a recent Liberian demographic and health survey
Background
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health problem and a violation of women's human rights. Almost one third of women aged 15–49 years who have been in a relationship have experienced to some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner worldwide.
Objective
The study aimed to assess the prevalence of intimate partner violence within the last 12 months and associated factors among reproductive aged women in Liberia.
Method
This study was based on a large community-based cross-sectional survey, Liberia Demographic Health Survey (LDHS), conducted From October 16, 2019, to February 12, 2020, in Liberia. The 2019–20 LDHS used a stratified two-stage cluster design. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify independent intimate partner violence among reproductive age women in Liberia and to control confounders. Adjusted odds ratio and confidence interval (CI) were used to declare statistical significance in the final model. Those variables with
p
value < 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.
Result
The overall prevalence of IPV within the last 12 months was 44.74% (42.73–46.77). age of the women 41% (AOR = 0.59, 95%CI 0.37–0.93), 42% (AOR = 0.58, 95%CI 0.35–0.94), and 59% (AOR = 0.41, 95%CI 0.25–0.68) among women with in the age group of 35–39, 40–44 and 45–49 respectively, south central region (AOR = 0.71, 95%CI 0.52–0.96), women’s primary education (AOR = 1.28, 95%CI 1.01–1.63), female household head (AOR = 0.77, 95%CI 0.61–0.97), husbands higher education (AOR = 0.62, 95%CI 0.39–0.99), positive wife beating attitude (AOR = 1.57, 95%CI 1.29–1.90), husband drinks (AOR = 2.59, 95%CI 2.14–3.15) and Women’s decision making autonomy (AOR = 0.75, 95%CI 0.61–0.93) were significantly associated with IPV.
Conclusion
The prevalence of IPV in Liberia was high. Socio-demographic characteristics of women, husbands education, sex of household head, having a positive attitude towards wife-beating, partner’s alcohol drinking habit and women empowerment was significantly associated with IPV in Liberia. Policymakers and program designers have to take into account those factors when they design interventions to reduce IPV in Liberia.
Journal Article
Dueling incentives: Sexual violence in Liberia and the politics of human rights advocacy
Transnational advocacy organizations are influential actors in the international politics of human rights. While political scientists have described several methods these groups use – particularly a set of strategies termed 'information polities' – scholars have yet to consider the effects of these tactics beyond their immediate impact on public awareness, policy agendas or the behavior of state actors. This article investigates the information politics surrounding sexual violence during Liberia's civil war. We show that two frequently-cited 'facts' about rape in Liberia are inaccurate, and consider how this conventional wisdom gained acceptance. Drawing on the Liberian case and findings from sociology and economics, we develop a theoretical framework that treats inaccurate claims as an effect of 'dueling incentives' – the conflict between advocacy organizations' needs for short-term drama and long-term credibility. From this theoretical framework, we generate hypotheses regarding the effects of information politics on (1) short-term changes in funding for human rights advocacy organizations, (2) short-term changes in human rights outcomes, (3) the institutional health of humanitarian and human rights organizations, and (4) long-run outcomes for the ostensible beneficiaries of such organizations. We conclude by outlining a research agenda in this area, emphasizing the importance of empirical research on information politics in the human rights realm, and particularly its effects on the lives of aid recipients.
Journal Article
International Organizations, Nongovernmental Organizations, and Police Implementation of Domestic Violence Policies in Liberia and Nicaragua
Domestic violence is the predominant form of violence against women in most countries in Africa and Latin America. Scholars have theorized the adoption of domestic violence laws and policies in both regions. However, policy implementation is understudied and under theorized. Therefore, we compare how international organizations and women's nongovernmental organizations have influenced the implementation of domestic violence policies by police officers in Liberia and Nicaragua. We introduce the concept of the transnational implementation process and describe how international organizations and women's organizations have employed training, institutional and policy restructuring, and monitoring to influence police behavior at the street level. The effects of these strategies have been conditional on the political environment. We identify two patterns of international and domestic influence on street-level implementation: internationally led and domestically supported implementation in Liberia, with domestically led and internationally supported implementation in Nicaragua.
Journal Article
Measuring the incidence and reporting of violence against women and girls in liberia using the 'neighborhood method'
Background
This paper reports on the use of a “neighborhood method” to measure the nature and incidence of violence against women and girls in post-conflict Liberia.
Methods
The study population comprised females in Montserrado and Nimba counties. Study participants were randomly selected for interviews using multi-stage cluster sampling. 30 clusters of households were sampled in each county. Information on incidents of domestic violence and rape within the preceding 18 months was collected with regard to females of all ages in the respondent’s household, and those of her four closest neighbors to make up the full sample.
Findings
Households in the sample contained 7015 females (1687 girls, 4586 women, 742 age missing) in Montserrado and 6632 (2070 girls, 4167 women, 95 age missing) in Nimba. In the previous 18 months 54.1% (CI 53.1-55.1) and 55.8% (CI 54.8-56.8) of females in Montserrado and Nimba respectively were indicated to have experienced non-sexual domestic abuse; 19.4% (CI 18.6-20.2) and 26.0% (CI 25.1-26.9) of females in Montserrado and Nimba respectively to have been raped outside of marriage; and 72.3% (CI 70.7-73.9) and 73.8% (CI 72.0-75.7) of married or separated women in Montserrado and Nimba respectively to have experienced marital rape. Husbands and boyfriends were reported as the perpetrators of the vast majority of reported violence. Strangers were reported to account for less than 2% of the perpetrators of rape in either county. Incidents were most commonly disclosed to other family members or to friends and neighbors, and less often to formal authorities such as the police, court or community leaders. Incidents were approaching fifty times more likely to be reported to police if perpetrated by strangers rather than intimate partners.
Conclusions
Violence against women and girls is widespread in the areas studied. Programming needs to address the fact that this violence is primarily occurring in the household, where most incidents go unreported outside the immediate family or social circle. Police and hospital reports severely under-represent these known perpetrators. Inter-interviewer variance and differences in reports for self and neighbors for some outcomes caution the precision and validity of some estimates. However, the potential utility of the neighborhood method for estimating prevalence rates with an accuracy suitable for programmatic purposes in conflict-affected and post-conflict settings is noted.
Journal Article
Healthcare utilisation and empowerment among women in Liberia
Background Many efforts have been undertaken to improve access to healthcare services in low-income settings; nevertheless, underutilisation persists. Women's lack of empowerment may be a central reason for underutilisation, but empirical literature establishing this relationship is sparse. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study using data from the 2007 Liberia Demographic and Health Survey. Our sample included all non-pregnant women who were currently married or living with a partner (N=3925 unweighted). We used multivariate logistic regression to assess the associations between constructs derived from the Theory of Gender and Power (TGP) and healthcare utilisation. Results Two-thirds of women (65.6%) had been to a healthcare facility for herself or her children in the past 12 months. Constructs from the three major theoretical structures were associated with healthcare utilisation. Women with no education, compared with women with some education, were less likely to have been to a healthcare facility (OR=0.76; 95% CI 0.62 to 0.93) as were women who had experienced sexual abuse (OR=0.65; 95% CI 0.45 to 0.95) and women who were married (OR=0.69, 95% CI 0.54 to 0.88). Women in higher wealth quintiles, compared with women in the next lower wealth quintile, and women with more decision-making power had greater odds of having been to a healthcare facility (OR=1.22; 95% CI 1.10 to 1.36 and OR=1.10; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.20; respectively). Conclusions Strong associations exist between healthcare utilisation and empowerment among women in Liberia, and gender imbalances are prevalent. This fundamental issue likely needs to be addressed before large-scale improvement in health service utilisation can be expected.
Journal Article
Factors Associated with Unmet Need for Modern Contraception in Post-Conflict Liberia
We examined the association between intimate partner violence and unmet
need for modern contraception in post-conflict Liberia. This is a
secondary analysis of data collected using the Priorities for Local
AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE) method. Data from 499 sexually experienced
young women (aged 14-25) in Montserrado County, Liberia were examined.
Intimate partner violence (55.7%), unintended pregnancy (83.2%), and
abortion (45.3%) were pervasive in the study population. An estimated
35.9% of respondents had an unmet need for modern contraception.
However, multivariate logistic regression results did not reveal an
association between intimate partner violence and unmet need (OR 1.11;
95% CI 0.70-1.75). Among covariates examined, only contraceptive use at
sexual debut (26.1%) was significantly associated with unmet need (OR
0.27; 95% CI 0.14-0.52). Liberian youth need information about and
access to modern contraceptive methods besides condoms. Interventions
to identify and treat victims of violence are also needed. Afr J Reprod
Health 2014; 18[2]: 58-67)
Nous avons étudié l'association entre la violence du
partenaire intime et le besoin non satisfait de la contraception mo
derne au Liberia de post- conflit. Il s'agit d'une analyse secondaire
des données recueillies à travers la méthode des
priorités pour les efforts locaux du contrôle du SIDA
(PELCS). Nous avons étudié les données de 499 jeunes
femmes (âgées de 14-25) dans le comté de Montserrado,
Libéria, qui étaient sexuellement expérimentées. La
violence du partenaire intime (55,7, les grossesses non
désirées (83,2 %) et l'avortement (45,3 %) étaient
très communs dans la population étudiée. On estime que
35,9 % des répondants ont un besoin non satisfait de la
contraception moderne. Cependant, les résultats multivariés
de la régression logistique n'ont pas révélé une
association entre la violence du partenaire intime et les besoins non
satisfaits (OR 1,11, IC 95% 0,70 à 1,75). Parmi les co-variables
examinées, seule l'utilisation des contraceptifs au premier
rapport sexuel (26,1%) était significativement associée
à des besoins non satisfaits (OR 0,27, IC 95% 0,14 au 0,52). La
jeunesse libérienne a besoin d'informations sur l'accès aux
méthodes contraceptives modernes à part les
préservatifs. Les interventions qui visent à identifier et
à traiter les victimes de violence sont également
nécessaires. Afr J Reprod Health 2014; 18[2]: 58-67).
Journal Article