Roman Catholic Church’s Efforts in Addressing Violence against Women: a Case of Women in Marriage, Maragua Parish, Murang'a County, Kenya
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Date
2021
Authors
Mburu, Evan Njuguna
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
Violence against women (VAW) is a gender-based violence act resulting in physical,
sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women. VAW is a fundamental
violation of human rights. This study was to investigate efforts of the Roman Catholic
Church in covering violence against women in Maragua Parish, Murang’a County.
Led by the following objectives, the study aims: to find out the prevalence of violence
against women in Maragua Parish, to establish the strategies employed by the church
to concentrate to violence against women in the parish, to suggest comprehensive
mechanism which can be adopted by Maragua parish to address violence against
women. The study was carried out in thirteen out station within the parish and it had
specific focus on CWA, CMA, married individual not in the two association and the
head priest. Radical feminist theory was used. The study employed the stratified
sampling method. The target population according to the parish record (2014) was
5,420 as per the Morgan and Krejicie (1970) model determining sample size a total of
357 respondents were targeted to find the sample size per stratum. Data from church
members was obtained using questionnaires and the interview schedule for the head
priest. Analysis of quantitative data was done with the aid of descriptive statistics
entailing frequencies and percentages. Inferential statistics entailed Chi-square tests as
spearman and rank correlation order test to confirm the presence of casual relations
between variables. The techniques were used to analyze qualitative data collected
using interview schedules. Analyzed data was presented in the form of frequency, pie
charts, percentages and tables. The study found that 74% of the respondents were
aware of violence against women in the parish. Presence of pastoral counseling
programs to confirm violence against women was legible as evidence from 32% of
the respondents.67% of the respondents deemed themselves to have been aware of the
Church teachings .54% of the respondents considered the Church teachings to
advocate against domestic violence. The study recommended that the Roman Catholic
Church should seek to implore the members to extol the virtues of love and tolerance
in marriage as a prerequisite for harmonies coexistence in the households. Catholic
Church should accelerate the counseling programs in place with the view to helping
reverse the trend with regard to incidence of domestic violence. Activities like
workshops, seminars and capacity building forums for the membership should scale
up in the Church. The Catholic Church should seek to entrench the practice of
involving women in positions of leadership. This may have a positive effective on
building their confidence and self-esteem. It may infuse a sense of respect and
belonging from the congregants who also include the male members of the
community.
Description
A Research Thesis Submitted to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements to the Award of Degree of Master of Arts (Religious Studies) of Kenyatta University. May, 2021
Keywords
Roman Catholic Church’s, Violence, Women, Women, Marriage, Maragua Parish, Murang'a County, Kenya