A Qualitative Study of Sexual Violence and Attribution of Responsibility in Georgian Youth

Attribution of Responsibility in Sexual Violence

Attribution of responsibility is a central component in understanding how sexual violence is understood and practiced in a society and in this case, in youth. Academic studies have indicated that rape victims, despite being victims of a crime, are often blamed and denigrated, even to the extent whereby the victim is held responsible for an assault (Calhoun et al., 1976; Donnerstein & Berkowitz, 1981; Janoff-Bulman, et al., 1985). Observers’ judgments and actions are also subject to bias as a result of their personality disposition rooted in given cultural context that has an effect on attribution making (Maddux & Yuki, 2006). Patriarchal culture results in ready schemes of judgement where male perpetrators either are not blamed, completely for violence or their blame is shared with victims. A number of studies on factors influencing attributions of rape victims revealed that more male students than female students believe that victims are responsible for rape situations (Bell, Kuriloff & Lotte, 1994; McCaul, Veltrum, Boyechko, Crawford, 1990).

Sexual Violence in Youth

In the United States many studies were conducted about sexual violence issues in youth. The main reason for these studies was that sexual assaults on campus has become a major concern for many colleges and universities in the United States, for example one out of every four women experience some form of sexual victimization while in college (Cantor et al., 2015). Also, sexual victimization can affect future victimization (Messman-Moore & Long, 2003; Messman-Moore et al., 2000; Noll, Horowitz, Bonanno, Trickett, & Putnam, 2003), and increase the chance of perpetration of violence later in life (McMahon et al., 2015), with victims often showing a propensity to become abusive. In addition, there is evidence that sexual violence can significantly impair one’s cognitive abilities (Hall et al., 2014), reducing students’ opportunities for success during and after college (Jordan, 2014). Research has consistently demonstrated over the past four decades that college women are at high risk of rape and attempted rape while in college (Fisher et al., 2000; Karjane et al., 2005; Koss et al., 1987).

The given study not only contributes to existing literature on understanding sexual violence in Georgian youth but also is one of the first and essential steps designing effective programs for preventing and controlling sexual violence in Georgia.

Ethics

Ethical approval for the research has been granted by the dissertation committee of Free University of Tbilisi in Georgia. Before the interviews, research participants were informed on the purpose of the research and their right to participate or refuse participation. Additionally, all the participants were also assured of anonymity of their identity and confidentiality of their responses. Written informed consent was obtained from the participants. All data were saved in a secure file, with only the researchers in charge of the data collection and analysis accessing the information.

Study Design

In-depth exploration and understanding of beliefs, views and attitudes is a complex process requiring flexibility, rich description, constant tracking of new insights and rigorous analysis on every stage of data collection and analysis. Therefore, qualitative research approach was used in revealing how sexual violence is defined and understood, who are responsible for sexual violence and what are the underlying reasons behind those views.

Data Collection Methods, Instruments and Technologies

The qualitative study was conducted from September of 2019 to March of 2021. To ensure rich and in-depth interpretations and discussions on sexual violence and all the parties and factors involved in it, it was planned to conduct in-depth interviews with selected respondents. Considering the complexity of study topic, instead of asking open-ended direct questions, respondents were given real stories of sexual violence incidences from Georgian reality. Then, respondents were asked to share and explain in detail their views and attitudes on given stories. Real stories of sexual violence were compiled from semi-structured interviews with specialists working on sexual violence cases (in total: 15 respondents, including lawyers, doctors, psychologists and social workers). There are not many organisations and specialist who works on sexual violence cases in Georgia. A snowball sampling method was used for recruiting specialists. Also, sexual violence cases were compiled from Georgian digital media (Tabula, Liberali, Netgazeti) articles and TV programs (Rustavi 2). Google www.google.com was used as database and key words were sexual violence, sexual harassment, sexual coercion and rape (all key words were in Georgian). Sexual violence case study was done from September 2019 to December 2019.

Research and analysis was carried out by two researchers Natalia Mchedlishvili and Nino Zhghenti. Both researchers were involved in process of research design, development and implementation. Natalia has conducted all the interviews and then thorough analysis of the data was done by Natalia and Nino as well.

Sampling and Piloting Strategy

In the first phase, the pilot interviews were carried out. 8 interviews were conducted with students of Free University of Tbilisi and Agricultural University of Georgia (Tbilisi). After the pilot, the interview guide took final shape and interviews were continued (29 interviewees were added to pilot interviews) with other students from same universities, also, from Batumi State University, from Ilia State University (Tbilisi), from Tbilisi State University and Caucasus University (Tbilisi). The age of participants were from 18 to 25. The research participants were on different year of study from first year of Bachelor’s degree to last year of Master’s degree. The total number of participants were 37: 19 male and 18 female. The participants were from different faculties: Social Sciences, Business Administration, International Relations, Mathematics and Computer Science, Natural Sciences, Law, Humanitarian Sciences etc. The participants were selected by purposeful random sampling on the basis of the universities. The adequacy of the sampling size was determined on the basis of the saturation of collected data. The participants were invited to the interview by email (obtained from the database of the universities, about 300 emails). Most of invited participants agreed to interview. Some of the interviews took place at the universities in a separate room, face to face and one to one with interviewer and some were conducted via Zoom program (www.zoom.us), due to coronavirus lockdowns in Georgia, from January 2020 to March 2021. All the interviews were conducted one to one and were audiotaped for further data analysis. Interviews lasted on average 1-1.5 hours and were in Georgian.

The pilot interviews were conducted in order to test if sexual violence stories were well-structured and if the content of the story was clear and neutrally formulated. The later was important to avoid altering participants views by biased story telling. After pilot interviews, stories were revised and designed in three categories: 1) sexual harassment stories; 2) sexual coercion stories; 3) sexual violence stories (the most severe cases). The guide contained the three story categories and five major open-ended questions which implied regular prompting, based on respondents’ answers: 1) What do you think about this situation in the story? 2) What do you think, how this situation in this story can be interpreted? Is it sexual harassment, sexual coercion or sexual violence? (These questions were asked chronologically and were based on respondents’ answers) 3) Why do you think this story is sexual harassment (sexual coercion or sexual violence)? 4) Would something change if the participants were different sex or gender? 5) In this story, who is responsible for sexual violence?

Data Processing and Analysis

Based on audio files detailed transcripts of each interview was prepared. Thematic analysis method was used for data analysis. This method, by using inductive approach, allowed close examination of respondents’ views and attitudes. Through a systematic and structured reading, codes themes were generated using qualitative data analysis software - NVIVO program. Data analysis is structured according to three research questions. Within each question, respondents’ narratives are analysed in context of three theme categories of sexual violence: sexual harassment, sexual coercion, sexual violence.

Sexual Harassment, Sexual Coercion and Sexual Violence: Views and Justification

Most¹ of participants consider sexual harassment as unpleasant flirting, comments with sexual content, inappropriate touch, insistent gaze, comments about body parts, sexist insults and discrimination, messages of sexual content. These are one time or recurrent actions that usually act as a hinting for one’s sexual intentions to other person. This leads to victim’s disruptions in social routines and functioning, especially when it happens at office. The later is a social context where, sometimes hidden abusive organizational culture is a major determinant for violent relationships. According to respondents, when candidates for employment are initially selected based on appearance, eventually harasser makes attempts of unwanted and unpleasant touching or/and sexually intimidating remarks. Either intention is never realized or at some point, it culminates in a violent or forced sexual act, “sexual violence”. Hence, it is believed that those situations take place virtually or when two parties are alone in a room or/and it is impossible or hard to escape. For example, locking a door by a harasser or creating any physical barrier to prevent victim from leaving. One of the participants shared his view: “Sexual harassment is a complicated term. It is difficult to define. I think, in case of sexual harassment you have no space for action. You are trapped in an abuser’s hands. If you are free in space and you are able to escape or ask for immediate help, it is not sexual harassment.” (male student, 21 years old). It was also mentioned that, sometimes, without any physical obstacles, victim’s emotions of shame and embarrassment are sufficient for her/him not asking for available help. As respondents explained, this emotions are usually culturally rooted where perpetrators are well aware of it and victim’s feel lonely and have low or no trust in the social environment for understanding and support.

Sexual Coercion

According to research participants sexual coercion is more indirect form of violence where one person puts another person in a situation where she/he cannot refuse sexual interaction or any other action with sexual content and in the most situations, the abuser do not need to use physical force. For example, one of the respondent believes that: “Sexual coercion is when a person badly uses his power over another person. For example, an abuser can say that if you do not agree for sexual intercourse, I can use this power and you will lose your job” (male student, 22 years old). “Power”, in this case, is defined as a possession of some compromising material or any other information that puts the victim in an unfavourable position in a family or public eye. On the other hand, it is also defined as power hierarchy where the most widespread cases are represented in employer – employee relationships. Here, while one needs to keep his/her job, the other takes advantage of this situation. In both cases, one with information or with higher position in a hierarchy, through blackmailing, makes the other person to do sexual activities that may take place once or multiple times. Respondents also believed that it is sexual coercion when an abuser, with blackmailing, can use a victim’s psychological condition to force them into sexual intercourse. These are problematic situations where two persons start interaction with different intentions and end up with sexual intercourse where one of them could not find sufficient inner strength to resist the flow of events.

Unlike sexual harassment, where marking point was verbal expression of “unwanted”, “inappropriate” and “unpleasant” sexual content; sexual coercion was understood as, one party puts the other party in a situation where it is hard to resist the imposed sexual activities. This characteristic of the phenomenon is not observed objectively (e.g. demonstration of physical force) but it is accessible through exploring and understanding subjective feelings and emotions of a victim. Respondents further explained that sexual coercion is more like a psychological violence and intimidation. One of the respondents expressed her view about the case of sexual coercion of a man by his ex-partner (a man):“This case is sexual coercion because the abuser badly used psychological pressure on the victim and forced him to have sex” (female, 20 years old). Victims, without physical or/and, sometimes even verbal resistance, are involved in sexual interaction. Therefore, this type of violence is harder to identify and prove.

Sexual Violence

Most participants consider sexual violence to be using physical force for sexual intercourse, unwanted touching, repetitive unwanted sexual comments leading to forced sexual act, coercive sexual intercourse and spreading someone else’s sexual photos and/or videos. Most participants think that sexual violence is quite a broad term and it sometimes includes sexual harassment and sexual coercion, as well: “Sexual violence is a much broader notion and it implies sexual harassment and sexual coercion too” (female student, 19 years old). One of the participants said: "I perceive violence more as a physical act that is committed against the will, and given behaviour and its outcome is visible” (male student, 24 years old). Another participant believed that: "It can also be just a hand patting or something like that…” (female student, 23 years old). In the end of the interview, one of the participants summarised: “Sexual violence, probably implies all those interactions where one party is involved against his/her will.” (female student, 20 years old).

Based on students’ narratives, it was obvious that sexual violence was interpreted as forced physical behaviour on another person and also was perceived as an umbrella term for different forms of sexual violence, including sexual harassment and sexual coercion: “It is important to know differences among sexual harassment, sexual coercion and sexual violence. I think, when you act against your will, it is coercion. Sexual violence is when someone uses physical force …” (male student, 22 years old). Consequently, causes and reasons for perceiving a situation as sexual violence was overlapping with causes and reasons expressed in cases of sexual harassment and sexual coercion. This was due to consideration that sexual violence was more a general category for various forms of sexual violence. The research participants considered the situations in given stories as sexual violence, because there was clear physical assault where one party used physical force: "At first, the fact that he used physical force for having sex is already sexual violence, because the other person did not want this” (male student, 21 years old). Also, one party had not consented to sexual intercourse and clearly expressed that they did not want sex and the second party forced them into it, for example in case of forced marriage one of the participants expressed her view: “This case is sexual violence, because the abuser was using psychological pressure and after this he used physical force too” (female student, 20 years old). Also, one party used blackmail and forced the second party into sex: “One of the partners clearly expressed her will. In this case the will of the victim is clearly visible. The woman expressed a clear will and everything happened against it. This means sexual violence” (male student, 24 years old). Most participants indicated that the case should be considered as sexual violence, because the victim could not give consent, she was drunk and unconscious.

Responsibility for Sexual Harassment, Sexual Coercion or Sexual Violence

Attribution of responsibility was done in favour of a perpetrator and in some cases, in favour of victims too. The decision who to blame, was contingent upon contextual and situational details. Especially, in situations, where there was not a demonstration of physical violence and/or clear and categorical refusal by victim, students believed that responsibility for the outcome should be shared. One of the participants expressed her view about situation where lecturer was sending nude photos to student via messenger: "I do not know the exact messages between them, but because this relationship was bilateral (between student and lecturer), the responsibility cannot be attributed to one party” (female student, 21 years old). Also, when the violence situations were repetitive and victim “could influence” on a particular situation the research participants distributed more responsibility to a victim, for example in regards to the sexual harassment and sexual coercion of someone at a workplace. One of the participants expressed his view about the case of forced marriage: “The responsibility is distributed to victim too, because she saw that the man acted violently against her and she should have told someone about this, she should not be so afraid. I could not see that this girl tried to solve this situation, she even did not ask for help from her family members” (male student, 23 years old).

Students also attributed less responsibility to victims when the abuser was a stranger and the victim could not somehow “control” the situation. One of the research participants said: “In some cases there were solutions for the situation, but here I cannot see how the victim could influence the situation and avoid sexual violence” (female student, 20 years old). In this research, no differences were found between female and male participants’ answers. This was true for all three main categories and for all discussed cases.

Study Limitation

The core limitation of this study is that it does not include all Georgian society’s views about sexual violence issues, but only Georgian youth’s perspectives It was beyond the researchers’ control how honest the participants were in answering the questions, but to ensure honest responses of the respondents, in-depth interviews implied additional in-depth questioning and in some instances, reformulation of major and additional questions. This allowed to understand whether respondent was not confident in his/her responses and to double check the views and attitudes that respondents provided.

Underlying Data

This project contains the following underlying data:

Extended Data

Figshare: Sexual Violence and the Object of Attribution of Responsibility in Georgian Students

https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Data_docx/19123637 (Mchedlishvili & Zhghenti, 2022)

This project contains the following extended data: