4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions

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    Early life factors associated with childhood trajectories of violence among the birth to twenty- plus cohort in Soweto, South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Muchai, Lilian Njeri; Kagura, Juliana; Naicker, Sara
    Introduction Violence against children has devastating and long-term negative consequences on individuals' and society's health, social and economic well-being. There is limited research on the life course experience of violence especially in Africa. This study aimed to identify sub-groups of physical & sexual violence victimization patterns separately in childhood, and evaluate early life factors predicting these violence trajectories. Methods This study used data from age 5 to 18 years from the ongoing prospective Birth to Twenty Plus cohort (Bt20+). Children within the Bt20+ cohort with data on physical and sexual violence in at least 2-time points between 5 and 18 years were included in the analyses. Group-based trajectory modelling was employed to identify groups of children with similar patterns of violence over time. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize study variables by violence trajectory group membership, while multivariable logistic regression was used to identify early life factors measured between birth and 5 years, associated with violence trajectory group membership. Results Two trajectory groups were identified for both physical and sexual violence victimization. For physical violence victimization, the majority of participants fell into the adolescent limited group (65.1%) and just over a third (34.9%) of the children were in the chronic increasing group. For sexual violence victimization, most participants fell into the adolescent limited group (74.1%, with a quarter in the late increasing (25.9%) group. Early life factors associated with a higher risk of chronic increasing physical violence victimization trajectory group membership, after adjusting for covariates, were being male (aOR 1.67, 95% CI 1.31; 2.10) and having a mother with at least secondary education compared to higher education (aOR 1.73, 95% CI 1.08; 2.76). In addition, residing in middle, compared to low, socioeconomic households (aOR 0.68, 95% CI 0.50; 0.92) was protective against membership in this group. Residing in high compared to low socioeconomic households, was the only early life factor with marginally significant (aOR 0.63, 95% CI 0.42; 0.95) association with membership in the late-increasing sexual violence victimization trajectory group, with those in better-off households less likely to experience sexual violence victimization with this pattern. Conclusion Children within the same community can follow different patterns of both physical and sexual violence victimization across childhood. Identification of early factors that predict membership to sub-groups of violence trajectories provides key violence prevention intervention points that can preempt or mitigate children’s exposure or experience of violence. Future research should explore a larger variety of early life factors proximal to the child as well as those more distal at the community and school levels
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    The Impact of the International Human Rights Regime on Personal Security: A Comparative Study of South Africa and Saudi Arabia
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-07) Ragooloo, Prebashnee; Zähringer, Natalie
    Personal security has become an important issue area to the international community since its differentiation as an aspect of human security (United Nations Human Development Report 1994, 25). The protection of the personal security of people is reliant on international and domestic criminal justice systems. The personal security of people within territories of democratic forms of government are expected to be more protected. Using a comparative method of analysis, South Africa and Saudi Arabia have been selected for this study due largely to the different types of government to determine the degree of personal security that people have in the respective countries. Unexpectedly, Saudi Arabia offers a greater protection of personal security to people within its territory due to the harsh punishments it administers to perpetrators of violent crime. The findings of the study indicate that democracies do not offer greater protection to people from physical violence as a result of its compassionate criminal justice laws. On the other hand, while authoritarian forms of government such as Saudi Arabia is viewed negatively, it affords people within its territory greater protection from violent crime. This study has found that a non-democratic regime (Saudi Arabia in this case) is found to be better a ensurer of personal security than a democratic regime. A key recommendation for future study could be that of comparing a greater number of democratic and non-democratic regimes and to gauge what a bigger sample of comparison could deliver.