Role of Education and Risk of Violence in African Countries

To understand the role of education, it is important to compare today’s education with past years one, and also know what are the possible issues the could be solved through education, violence for example, also prove what type of violence can be solved, in this discussion I will focus on GBV violence along with some ethnic factors that have some relation with education.

Many researchers report that education helps to reduce domestic violence against women, but others found that education has less effect on risk of violence in African countries, Nigeria as a special case, also through looking into different ethnic groups to have a better understanding, along with the possible effects of “Nomadic Pastoralism” , the idea here is that education can reduce the GBV risk in many countries, and that sometimes some other factors prevent education from doing this, I focused on African sides because in most cases it’s more possible to come across poverty and non-education there, which also leads to changes in the psychological states and personalities, then increase violence (I look forward to go deeper in this point), several tribes in northern Nigeria, female seclusion practiced by several tribes, Hausa(Werth Mann, 2002), Fulani(Kintz, 1989,P.14) and Kanuri(Kritz and Makinwa-Adebusoye,1999:403), in Africa also some practice, others don’t, like the Masai women, where they are not secluded, and can leave family home and earn money from trade (Hodgson, 1999, PP.47-94; Tanka etal.., 2000,P14), those practices where women are supposed to do prevent them from education which in return will get them into violence cases, according to “Demographic & Health Survey – DHS” data provided by ORC Macro (Kishor & Johnson, 2004), for women aged 15 to 49, and also data from (work, attitudes & spending (WAS)) Nigerian surveys in 2003 and 2005, along with eight southern and seven northern African countries, a general pattern formed in the southern parts that there is less chance of having experienced GBV from women’s current or former partners, moving to northern parts there was some countries that had highest risks of GBV with the 5-8 years of education, Zambia, Cameron, Liberia and Nigeria were those countries, they showed that ethnic group is relevant to GBV and that it prevents education from having the best effect on the women.

Because education can increase the amount of tolerance and prevent conflicts, also that It can help to build understanding and empower women, it can reduce violence, specially the domestic violence, and I do believe that education is the best solution to reduce or prevent violence, more importantly against women as special, but some factors might not let the result appear in the best way, so we need to have understanding about the possible factors that do, in this case Seclusion and Nomadic Pastoralism while considering the rural parts and countries with ethnic groups.

References:

1. Simister, J. G. (1970, January 1). Women´s education reduces risk of Gender-Based Violence: evidence from 33 countries. Retrieved from https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=4368234.