The scope of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse in a Bedouin-Arab community of female adolescents: The interplay of racism, urbanization, polygamy, family honor, and the social marginalization of women.

OBJECTIVES: This is an exploratory study of the abuse-especially sexual-of female adolescents in a conservative and traditional Bedouin-Arab community in southern Israel. The objectives were (1) to examine the rate of sexual abuse, (2) to examine the rate of physical and psychological abuse, and (3) to develop regression models to predict these forms of abuse. METHODS: : A self-administered survey that measured demographic characteristics and psychological abuse was distributed to 217 female high-school students (aged 14-18 years). Sexual and physical abuse were measured via the Finkelhor's scale [Finkelhor, D. (1979). Sexually victimized children. New York: Free Press]. RESULTS: Sixty-nine percent of the participants (n=149) reported no sexual abuse experiences, 16% reported one or two experiences, 11% reported three or four, and 4% reported more than four. Most participants indicated that they had been physically abused at least once by their father (37.1%), mother (43.7%), or siblings (44%) during the previous month. More than 50% of the participants reported being psychologically abused by members of their immediate families. Mother's age and closeness to mother significantly predicted physical abuse, and marital satisfaction and mother's age significantly predicted psychological abuse. CONCLUSION: This study addresses a topic that has never before been fully investigated--the maltreatment of females in a conservative, tribal Arab community. Although this was an exploratory study, the results attest that female abuse is a serious social problem in this community, and that the rate of abuse exceeds that of other Palestinian groups. These findings demonstrate an immediate need for professional intervention and prevention to address this problem.

Urinary diseases and ethnobotany among pastoral nomads in the Middle East.

This article is derived from a broad, twenty-year study of ethnobotany and folk medicine among pastoral nomads in the Middle East which took place from 1984 to 2004. The article presents examples of different treatments of diseases and disorders of the urinary tract carried out by healer herbalists. The preparation of remedies includes boiling infusions, extraction of dry or fresh leaves, flowers, seeds or whole plants. Some of these plants were used both as food and as medicine, by ingesting different parts of the plants, such as leaves, flowers, fruits, and so on, either while soft, cooked or dried. Data were collected by using unstructured interviews and by observation. These plants were identified by healers, patients, and university botanists. This paper identified eighty-five plant species, which belong to thirty-six families. The most representative families are: Asteraceae (8), Brassicaceae (6), Poaceae (6), Umbelliferae (6).

Herbs as a food and medicine source in Palestine.

This article describes the broad ethno-botany and folk medicine in Palestine. It presents examples of different edible plants and their use by Palestinians in a host of manners, fresh, cooked and dried, both as foodstuffs and treatment of diseases and medical disorders. Their potential application as cancer chemopreventive agents needs to be a focus of research attention.

Indigenous practices among Palestinians for healing eye diseases and inflammations.

This paper briefly describes the state health services in general, and eye care in particular for Palestinian Arabs under the British Mandate (1917-1948). The paper will also discuss the environmental and cultural origins of the prevalence of eye diseases among Palestinian Arabs. The second part of the research describes in detail indigenous practices of traditional medicine for healing trachoma and other eye diseases, inflammation that were prevalent in Mandatory Palestine.