Workplace violence against adolescent workers in the US

Abstract

Many working adolescents, most with only a few years work experience, have already suffered workplace violence. As youth are likely to be more vulnerable to its effects, developing workplace violence prevention strategies that target adolescent workers should be made a priority.

Abuse of working children and influencing factors, Turkey

“…The finding of our study that one out of every five children is subjected to abuse and a lesser proportion of them are threatened by knife or gun, which is the heaviest type of physical abuse, demonstrates the necessity of a serious inspection to be carried out in these environments. In our study, in parallel with the literature rates of physical abuse are higher in males (Rauscher, 2008;Ç agdaş , 2002) and those working in the industry sector. It could be stated that the traditional belief that using force is necessary to control men and the gender ratio and its interaction with type of work might be an influential risk factor for physical abuse.…”

“…Gender; because of there being studies relating to male apprentices' being subjected to abuse more (Rauscher, 2008;Kacker et al, 2007;Ç agdaş , 2002), age; thinking that abuse increases as the age decreases (Kacker et al, 2007;Hadi, 2000), sector of work; as working in industry that has harder conditions is thought to be risk factor according to the characteristics of working areas, number of siblings; thinking that with the increase of the number of the children the family can't control their children at the workplaces and with each child as the family income decreases and in spite of the problems at the workplace, the apprentices are forced to continue working (Hirschman & Voloshin, 2007), whether parents live together or not; as being with a single parent is thought to cause the decrease in the family income and to decrease child's perception of social support, family's income level; because of there being studies indicating that the violence increases with poverty (Kacker et al, 2007;Hadi, 2000), starting to work because of being unsuccesful at school; as the characteristics of the person being subjected to abuse are thought to be effective in abuse (UNICEF, 2006), length of service; as it is thought that the ones having fewer working years are less qualified and they can be subjected to abuse more (Ortega, Hogh, Pejtersen, Feveile, & Olsen, 2008), daily working duration; because of the fact that long working hours will raise the period passed with the exploiter (Audu et al, 2009), the number of the people employed in the workplace; owing to the fact that the increase in the number of the employees at the workplace can increase the number of the people causing abuse; the employer's gender; because of its being reported in the study relating to domestic abuse that males abuse males and females abuse females more and similarly the situation can be the same at the workplace (Figueiredo, Antonia, Carla, Maia, & Fernandes, 2004), weekly wage; lowness of the wage can be associated with not accepting the deeds of the child worker worthwhile and the lowness of working skills Ortega et al, 2008), smoking, alcohol, substance use; on account of the studies showing the relation between substance use and violence (Kugu, Akyüz, Ersan, & Dogan, 2000), abuse within the family; because of there being studies indicating that the violence started within the family continues in the future (WHO, 2007;Hussey, Chang, & Kotch, 2006) all of these above were evaluated as risk factors and were included in the model.…”

“…To analyze the abuse among working children, UNICEF (2006) offers a conceptional framework related to four areas which are seemed to be connected with each other is a conceptual framework for analyzing abuse at work among the working children: characteristics of the victims, characteristics of the perpetrators, factors in the working environment, risks related to the environment external to the place of work. The factors which can be held in this conceptional framework and which can cause the abuse described in previous researches that: Age (Kacker et al, 2007;Hadi, 2000), girl/boy sex (Chung et al, 2008;Rauscher, 2008;Ç agdaş , 2002) smaller size, timid and success to be low , poverty (Kacker et al, 2007;Hadi, 2000), working in the service sector (Kacker et al, 2007), working alone, night shift, long working hours (Audu, Geidam, & Jarma, 2009), low educational level (Ç agdaş , 2002). For working children workplace characteristics are important predictors of abuse.…”

“…Although, it is difficult to estimate how big and serious is the abuse among working children in real ; due to the results of the studies being done in limited numbers the frequency of observing physical abuse among working children varies between 5.5% and 61.0% (Tokuç , Evren, & Ekuklu, 2009;Rauscher, 2008;Kacker et al, 2007), it is reported that the rate of emotional abuse reaches up to 85.1% (Rauscher, 2008;Ç agdaş , 2002), that of sexual abuse reaches up to 42.7% (Gharaibeh, Hoeman, Kellogg, & Menard, 2003;Ç agdaş , 2002) and the rate of neglect goes up to 79.2% (Ç agdaş , 2002).…”

“…These characteristics which can be evaluated in the context of physical neglect as a subpattern of abuse can not only affect the child's growing up but they also threaten his/her health (Duyar, 2007;ILO, 1999). Besides, for working children their employers, colleagues, angry clients can be threatening factors for abuse (Rauscher, 2008;Runyan, Bowling, Schulman, & Gallagher, 2005;Aliyu, 2006;Fidan, 2004;Hunt, 1996).…”