If They Grow It,Will They Eat and Grow? Evidence from Zambia on Agricultural Diversity and Child Undernutrition

Abstract

In this article we address a gap in our understanding of how household agricultural production diversity affects the diets and nutrition of young children living in rural farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa. The specific objectives of this article are to assess: (1) the association between household agricultural production diversity and child dietary diversity; and (2) the association between household agricultural production diversity and child nutritional status. We use household survey data collected from 3,040 households as part of the Realigning Agriculture for Improved Nutrition (RAIN) intervention in Zambia. The data indicate low agricultural diversity, low dietary diversity and high levels of chronic malnutrition overall in this area. We find a strong positive association between production diversity and dietary diversity among younger children aged 6–23 months, and significant positive associations between production diversity and height for age Z-scores and stunting among older children aged 24–59 months.     

Beach boys or sexually exploited children? Competing narratives of sex tourism and their impact on young men in Sri Lanka??s informal tourist economy

Sex trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) are widely identified as global social problems, but each remain politically charged, especially given the disproportionate emphasis on sexual slavery. The current investigation is a case study of CSEC within the context of Sri Lanka??s international tourism industry. I draw from data collected during a multi-year field study to analyze and compare those understandings of sex tourism and CSEC driven by local ??moral crusaders????which dominated policy and public discussion??with the experiences of adolescent boys and young men who participated in these markets. Moral claims-making, focused as it was on cultural purity, morality, Western perversions, sexual slavery, and deviance, shifted attention away from the global political and economic contexts in which transactional sex took place. This resulted in both distortions and harms to marginalized youth in tourism communities, and a failure to address the economic realities of those involved in the informal tourism economy, including transactional sex with tourists. The current study thus adds additional support to the concerns raised by scholars and activists about the scope, nature, and impact of efforts to ameliorate commercial sexual exploitation, including the harms that result from narrow foci on individual deviance and sexual slavery.     

Welfare Reform: Prescription for Abuse? A Report on New Research Studies Documenting the Relationship of Domestic Violence and Welfare

Anecdotally, welfare‐to‐work programs have documented that domestic violence serves as a welfare‐to‐work barrier by partners' interference with education, training and work, or by physical or mental trauma which also prevents employment. Four new research studies, which, although using different methods, including random and nonrandom surveys of welfare caseloads and random neighborhood surveys, document high and remarkably consistent prevalence of domestic violence within welfare caseloads. Although much more needs to be known, the prevalence of domestic violence in these women's lives requires specific domestic violence‐sensitive welfare policies lest women become injured during the welfare‐to‐work process.     

The Effects of Feminist Mobilization and Women’s Status on Universities’ Reporting of Rape

ABSTRACT

When establishing the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, President Obama reminded universities of their obligation to report accurate rape statistics to the Department of Education. Research has not determined, on a national scale, what factors explain variation in (under)reporting. Using data from 413 top universities’ websites and institutional and archival data, we examine how state- and university-level factors shape universities’ rape reporting. Universities with a greater feminist presence and antiviolence activism, and those located in states where women have higher socioeconomic status and more American Association of University Women partnerships, report more rapes. We examine underreporting as an institutional rather than an individual-level phenomenon, connect campus reporting to the larger reporting literature, and provide practical policy and program implications.     

Proactive and Reactive Violence among Intimate Partner Violent Men Diagnosed with Antisocial and Borderline Personality Disorder

Personality disorder features have been an important basis of many batterer typologies (Babcock et al. J Fam Violence 15:391–409, 2000; Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart Psychol Bull 116:476–497, 1994), most notably Antisocial and Borderline Personality Disorders. Aggression that partner violent men commit has also been found to be heterogeneous, motivated by the need to control (proactive) or enacted out of emotion (reactive). In the present study, men who were physically abusive towards their female partner (N = 124 couples) were administered the SCID-II diagnostic interview for Antisocial (ASPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). It was hypothesized that partner violent men diagnosed with ASPD would show highest levels of proactive violence whereas men diagnosed with BPD (alone or comorbidly with ASPD) were expected to be reactively violent. Results suggest that violence perpetrated by men with different personality disorders differs in its function. Within the context of intimate relationships, BPD/comorbid men appear to use violence more reactively, while ASPD men tend to use violence both proactively and reactively. Implications for treatment are discussed.

Disproportionality and Disparities among Sexual Minority Youth in Custody

Research indicates that sexual minority youth are disproportionately criminalized in the U.S. and subjected to abusive treatment while in correctional facilities. However, the scope and extent of disparities based on sexual orientation remains largely overlooked in the juvenile justice literature. This study, based on a nationally representative federal agency survey conducted in 2012 (N?=?8785; 9.9% girls), reveals that 39.4% of girls and 3.2% of boys in juvenile correctional facilities identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. These youth, particularly gay and bisexual boys, report higher rates of sexual victimization compared to their heterosexual peers. Sexual minority youth, defined as both lesbian, gay, and bisexual identified youth as well as youth who identified as straight and reported some same-sex attraction, were also 2–3 times more likely than heterosexual youth to report prior episodes of detention lasting a year or more. Implications for future research and public policy are discussed.