Gender and sexual violence among students at a brazilian university Violência de gênero e sexual entre alunos de uma universidade brasileira

Objectives: the prevalence of gender and sexual violence, its association with gender and ethical attitudes and the experience of suffering and perpetration of violence were evaluated among students at a public university in Brazil. Methods: a cross-sectional study analyzed the answers given by 2430 students to a questionnaire sent by internet. Results: among girls, 56.3% had been subjected to some kind of violence and 9.4% to sexual violence since university admission; 29.9% of men reported having perpetrated some kind of violence, 11.4% gender and 3.3% sexual violence. Multivariate analysis showed that living with parents/relatives was a protective factor for women being subjected to and men perpetrating sexual violence but not for “any type of violence”. Lower scores for ethical attitudes were associated with a greater likelihood of men perpetrating any kind of or gender violence. Student for whom religion was important had a lower risk of being a perpetrator of any type and of sexual violence, but not gender violence. Conclusions: the findings may be useful for the discussion of this problem and to propose interventions to prevent or minimize the problems of gender and sexual violence on campus. Further studies in other university contexts need to be carried out to increase knowledge and explore possibilities for intervention.