Exploring the youth perceptions of factors contributing to victims' silence during the armed conflict in Ethiopia

Globally, one of the most devastating and worst consequence of armed war and conflict is the increased prevalence of violence against women and children. Violence against women and children includes all forms of sexual violence, domestic attack, and other forms of physical and mental harm on women and children. In contexts with war and instability, the reporting of violence against women and children becomes beyond a legal context rather considered as a huge socio-cultural and psychological challenge. This study aims to unpack the complex web of factors that youth perceive to contribute to the silence due to armed conflict in the face of violence against women and children in the Amhara Regional State. METHODS : A multi- district community based cross sectional study was conducted among selected districts of South Gondar zone, Ethiopia. All youth residents in the selected districts of South Gondar Zone and who were ready questions during the data collection period were included in the study. The study participants were chosen at the household level using a straightforward random selection technique. For the analysis, SPSS version 23 was utilized. The perception of youth about victim's silence was measured in-terms of perceived psychological, social, cultural, institutional and knowledge gap factors of victims. To know the crude association between the factors and youth perceptions of being silent victim, odds ratio (OR) was calculated with a 95% confidence interval (CI). Then, variables with a P-value of ≤ 0.2 were considered for multivariate analysis. Finally, P-value of ≤ 0.05 together with the confidence interval were used to be considered as having significant association.

A total of 592 respondents were included in this study with 92.2% response rate. Fear of the victim for attack being targeted by the perpetrator, fear of retaliation, economic dependence of the victim, fear of social stigma, the silence of bystanders were the youth perceived determinants of non-reporting violent acts by the victims of violence. CONCLUSIONS_: It was found that factors related to social, economical, perpetrator and bystander attitude were the determinants of being silent victims.