As part of the project to prevent and combat violence against women in Vukovar-Srijem County, which financially enables UN Fund to End Violence against Women We conducted a survey in Vukovar on young people's attitudes towards male-female roles and gender-based violence in order to create an educational curriculum that would challenge stereotypes and teach non-violent conflict resolution. The interviews were led by Senka Sekulić-Rebić, BaBe psychologist, Korana Radman, sociologist, and Sanja Sarnavka, project manager.
We started the research in April and continued in May – from May 2 to 5, we held 5 focus groups and conducted 10 individual semi-structured interviews with fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade elementary school students and high school students accommodated in the Student Home in Borovo naselje. We were received exceptionally well at both the Dragutin Tadijanović Elementary School and the Vukovar Student Home. One focus group was dedicated to talking to women victims of violence.
Judging by the conversations with young people, we will still have a long time to wait for the moment when most people will not care what gender someone is born into. The attitudes of young people reveal a deep-rooted understanding of the traditional roles of women and men – women are responsible for household chores, they should primarily be good mothers and housewives, and it is inappropriate for men to do "women's" work. In each group, only one girl or girl most often protested against this way of thinking and said that she would never allow herself to be "tamed" because she wanted to study and work and be equal in everything. When the issue of violence was raised, everyone said that there was too much of it among both young people and adults, but they did not know how it should and could be stopped.
The most interesting thing is that, after the initial silence and discomfort due to the expectation that they would express their opinions, they eventually begged us to stay and definitely come back to them – they complain about the school system in which life problems are rarely discussed, their opinions are even less often asked, and they almost never openly discuss male-female relationships.
The saddest thing was listening to their thoughts about the future. Most of them think that they will not be able to stay in their hometown because they do not see any improvements. The sharpest was a boy from the seventh grade who resolutely declared that he would not stay in Croatia, let alone in Vukovar, because there is no life there for ambitious young people. Asked why he does not try to change the current situation himself, he replied: "In Croatia, when someone really tries to change something, they immediately remove him."
Should we think about this statement? We do, but whether those responsible for the education and upbringing of young people will – remains to be seen.
We will continue the research in June after processing the transcripts of all the interviews conducted.
