Child marriage of female Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon: a literature review.

BACKGROUND: The Syrian conflict has resulted in major humanitarian crises. The risk is particularly high amongst female children who face additional gendered risks, such as harassment and sexual violence, including a rise in prevalence of child marriage. Despite the importance of this topic, current literature remains relatively scarce. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to explore the social and healthcare repercussions of Syrian refugee child marriages in Jordan and Lebanon. METHODS: A systematic review of the literature was carried out to gather evidence, from a total of eight articles. Data analysis was conducted using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme check tool to systematically assess the trustworthiness, relevance and results of the included papers. RESULTS: The findings of this research identify tradition, honour, economics, fear, and protection-related factors as drivers of child marriage of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. These motives overlap with findings regarding access to reproductive health and reproductive rights. The lack of autonomy of the child to give informed consent is augmented in the context of protracted violence and displacement. CONCLUSION: There is a need for a holistic approach to provide safe spaces, education, and protection to young girls and their families to reduce their acceptance of child marriage.

In-Law and Mate Preferences in Chinese Society and the Role of Traditional Cultural Values.

Using 347 parent-child dyads as participants, this study directly examined in-law and mate preferences in a typical collectivist culture. The results showed (1) traits indicating social status and parental investment were more highly valued by the parents, while traits indicating genetic quality and traits related to romantic love were more highly valued by the children. (2) Parental preferences were moderated by gender of the in-laws. Good earning capacity was more preferred by parents in a son-in-law, traits connoting genetic quality and reproductive fitness were more preferred by parents in a daughter-in-law. (3) There was more convergence in in-law and mate preferences in Chinese culture than in Western cultures. (4) Traditional cultural values (i.e., filial piety) can be used as a predictor of traditional mate preferences and less parent-child divergences. Additionally, greater preference for kind and understanding by parents than by children as well as by daughters than by sons, and greater preference for social status by the daughters' than by the sons' parents have not been observed in the rating and the ranking instrument. These findings illustrated how culture handles the parent-child disagreement over mating by authorizing greater parental influence on children's mating decisions.

Low Mitochondrial DNA Diversity in an Ancient Population from China: Insight into Social Organization at the Fujia Site.

To gain insight into the social organization of a population associated with the Dawenkou period, we performed ancient DNA analysis of 18 individuals from human remains from the Fujia site in Shandong Province, China. Directly radiocarbon dated to 4800-4500 cal BP, the Fujia site is assumed to be associated with a transitional phase from matrilineal clans to patrilineal monogamous families. Our results reveal a low mitochondrial DNA diversity from the site and population. Combined with Y chromosome data, the pattern observed at the Fujia site is most consistent with a matrilineal community. The patterns also suggest that the bond of marriage was de-emphasized compared with the bonds of descent at Fujia.

Racial differences in co-occurring substance use and serious psychological distress: the roles of marriage and religiosity.

The study examined how marriage and religiosity can protect members of certain racial/ethnic groups against co-occurring substance use and serious psychological distress. Using the national dataset 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, we analyzed data via multinomial logistic regression, observing several important results. Our findings generally support the deprivation-compensation thesis, in that religiosity elevates the mental health of racial/ethnic minority individuals more than that of Whites. We also found, however, that race/ethnicity moderates effects of education and poverty on the co-occurring behaviors, with Whites' mental health benefiting more from wealth and education than Blacks' or Hispanics' mental health did.

Giving birth: the voices of Ghanaian women.

Childbirth is significantly influenced by women's cultural perceptions, beliefs, expectations, fears, and cultural practices. Our purpose in conducting this focused ethnography was to determine the perceptions of Ghanaian childbearing women. Twenty-four mothers who received health care at the Salvation Army Clinic in Wiamoase, Ashanti, Ghana, participated in audiotaped interviews. Patterns of thought and behaviors were analyzed, describing the realities of the lives of Ghanaian childbearing women. Themes included centering on motherhood, accessing health care, using biomedicine, ethnomedicine, and spiritual cures; viewing childbirth as a dangerous passage; experiencing the pain of childbirth; and fearing the influence of witchcraft on birth outcomes. Culturally specific knowledge obtained in this study can be utilized by health care providers, health policymakers, and those designing health care interventions to improve the health and well-being of childbearing women in developing countries.

Liberation psychological implications for pastoral care of Korean military wives.

Native Korean women frequently suffer poverty, sexual violence, and Confucian gender discrimination. Once in America Korean military wives also experience racial and sexual oppression, intercultural familial conflicts and violence, and identity crisis and lead to feelings of isolation and non-belonging, a sense of anomie. Korean American pastors tend to understate and oversimplify the complexity of psychological and spiritual suffering of Korean military wives and overemphasize individual faith development as a solution. Liberation psychology evolved from an awareness of similar dehumanizing realities. The context-based perspective of liberation psychology offers a model to interpret and assist in the psychological and spiritual healing of Korean military wives. The healing power of conscientization offered in Liberation psychology for oppressed individuals encourages self-awakening suggesting it as an ideal interventional model to help Korean military wives and would be a useful approach for Korean American pastors.

Reproductive strategies and Islamic discourse: Malian migrants negotiate everyday life in Paris, France.

Approximately 37 thousand Malians currently reside in France as part of the West African diaspora. Primarily Muslim, both women and men confront challenges to their understandings of Islamic prohibitions and expectations, especially those addressing conjugal relations and reproduction. Biomedical policies generate marital conflicts and pose health dilemmas for women who face family and community pressures to reproduce but biomedical encouragement to limit childbearing. For many women, contraception represents a reprieve from repeated pregnancies and fatigue in spite of resistance from those who contest women's reproductive decisions as antithetical to Islam. French social workers play a particularly controversial role by introducing women to a discourse of women's rights that questions the authority of husbands and of religious doctrine. Women and men frame decisions and debate in diverse interpretations of Islam as they seek to manage the contradictions of everyday life and assert individual agency in the context of immigration and health politics.

African American couples merging strengths to successfully cope with breast cancer.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: To explore the process of coping with breast cancer among African American women and their spouses. DESIGN: Exploratory, qualitative study using grounded theory methods. SETTING: Large metropolitan area in the mid-Atlantic United States. SAMPLE: 12 African American couples (N = 24). METHODS: African American women and their spouses were asked to complete a background data sheet and participate in a face-to-face semistructured interview. Qualitative data were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Themes were identified using the constant comparative method. Quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive statistics. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES: The process of coping with breast cancer among African American couples. FINDINGS: The basic social concern was living through and beyond a breast cancer diagnosis. The core variable was merging strengths to cope with and survive a breast cancer diagnosis. Six main categories emerged to describe how African American couples actively worked together to cope with a breast cancer diagnosis: walking together, praying together, seeking together, trusting together, adjusting together, and being together. CONCLUSIONS: African American couples described the importance of combining their strengths and working together as a couple to cope with a breast cancer diagnosis. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: Nurses must understand the importance of developing culturally sensitive and culturally relevant interventions to assist African American couples with effectively coping with a breast cancer diagnosis. When providing care to African American couples, nurses should incorporate the six categories of walking, praying, seeking, trusting, adjusting, and being together to help couples cope with the various phases of the breast cancer experience.

"Hanging in" with HIV/AIDS in the rural north of Thailand: a grounded theory study.

A study was undertaken in 1997 through 2000 in the rural north of Thailand to describe and theorize the HIV/AIDS experiences of wives and widows there. Participants confronted four causally interrelated problems in their struggle to survive with HIV/ AIDS: physical, economic, psychoemotional, and sociocultural, and they used two social processes to manage them: namely, "hiding out" and "hanging in" with HIV/AIDS. This report describes and discusses the second of these basic social processes through which wives and widows in the rural north of Thailand cope with their HIV/AIDS infection. Hanging in involves a range of very active strategies derived from both traditional Thai culture and Western medicine and aimed at allowing participants to make the best of their predicament. In addition, this report renders explicit what is typically left implicit in grounded theory research; that is, that culture is the source both of the problems participants experienced and the means to their effective amelioration.

Sociocultural and behavioral contexts of condom use in heterosexual married couples in India: challenges to the HIV prevention program.

This article examines sociocultural expectations of sexual behavior and the reasons why not using condoms may be logical to married heterosexual couples in India. Married women who report monogamous sexual relationships with their husbands are a high-risk group for HIV infection in India. Based on the public health model and a population-based perspective on HIV infection prevention, this article illustrates the underlying mechanisms that link the role of women in society, holistic health beliefs, and cultural beliefs about the transmission of HIV with the precursors to nonuse of condoms. The author concludes that promoting condom use requires an emphasis on family health, not only as contraceptives. Challenges for reducing the social stigma and developing a comprehensive policy on HIV prevention and AIDS treatment and care are discussed.

Giving birth: the voices of Orthodox Jewish women living in Canada.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the meaning of the childbirth experience to Orthodox Jewish women living in Canada. DESIGN: In this phenomenologic study, audiotaped interviews were conducted. Tapes were transcribed verbatim and analyzed for emergent themes. Demographic data also were collected. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Thirty Orthodox Jewish women who had given birth to healthy full-term newborns at a university-affiliated Jewish hospital in Montreal, Canada, participated in the study. Data were collected within 2 weeks after childbirth, either in the mother's postpartum hospital room or in her home. RESULTS: The following themes reflecting spiritual/cultural dimensions of the childbirth experience were identified: (a) birth as a significant life event, (b) birth as a bittersweet paradox, (c) the spiritual dimensions of giving birth, (d) the importance of obedience to rabbinical law, and (e) a sense of support and affirmation. CONCLUSION: This study documents cultural, religious, and spiritual dimensions of the childbirth experience of Orthodox Jewish women living in Canada. Knowledge and appreciation of the multiple dimensions of childbirth reflected by this study's findings can contribute to holistic and culturally competent nursing care of women and newborns.