The majority of both men and women answer that they have never experienced violence in their parental families. However, the frequency of the response “never” leaves enough room for the presence of domestic violence. In one-fourth of the families of both women and men, children witnessed physical violence against their mother by their father or mother’s partner. Somewhat less than one-tenth of boys were exposed to unwanted touching of their genitals or buttocks, while the share of girls exposed to such situations is even bigger. About one-tenth of respondents were forced into sexual intercourse by threats.
As many as one-fourth of boys were victims of corporal punishment in school. Corporal punishment was even more common at home. Interestingly, however, girls were corporally punished in school less frequently, and more frequently at home, while it was the other way round in case of boys. The data show that material deprivation was more spread than physical violence, with boys being the victims of corporal punishment in school in as many as one-fourth of cases. Corporal punishment was even more common at home. The data show that material deprivation was more often than physical violence, with only 61.9% of male and 64.8% female respondents stating that they have never lived in extreme poverty.
Corporal punishment in school decreases with the age of respondents. Thus, 84.6% of the youngest men surveyed have never been punished, unlike 63.1% of men in the oldest age group. A similar connection is also noticed in case of corporal punishment at home. 69.1% of the youngest respondents and only 49.6% of the oldest respondents have never been punished. 73.1% of the youngest men and 46.2% of the oldest men were not beaten with “a belt or rod” at home. The situation related to poverty is similar.
Observed by age, the data show that young men were more rarely in the situation to witness physical violence against their mothers than the men of older generations. This pattern is even more pronounced in women. This can lead to the conclusion that domestic violence was more present in older generations than in younger ones, but that its visibility has increased today, due to which the overall picture can be misleading. Observed by education, the expected pattern is noticed again. More specifically, the more educated respondents less frequently witnessed violence against their mother.
On the other hand, the school itself was a place that in many ways was less secure and safe than the family. Almost half of the boys in school participated in fights against rival groups, and only 81.4% of the boys never took drugs, which indirectly indicates that almost one-fifth took drugs at school. Only 37.5% of young men never touched girls without their consent or made any sexual comments to them, which means that the vast majority did, although only 5.0% did it often. However, such a high frequency of making comments to girls shows that the treatment of girls as sex objects is a normalised behaviour of the vast majority of young men, although these data do not reveal the cultural nuances and the actual weight of comments or “teasing”.
On the other hand, only 31.1% of women respond that they have never been exposed to unwanted touching and sexual comments in school, thus presenting the situation of sexual harassment in school to be worse than stated by men. In school, girls were much less prone to physical conflicts with their peers than boys. Also, they used drugs less often in school. These gender differences are expected, but we should not exclude the possibility of their rapid reduction under the influence of various negative trends, which certainly includes the general normalisation of violence, crime, pornography and drug taking.