Hanina Halimatusaadiah Hamsan

Risky Sexual Behavior among Rural Female Adolescents in Malaysia: A Limited Role of Protective Factors

Purpose: This paper presents the findings of a cross-sectional survey on the risk and protective factors of premarital sexual behavior among rural female adolescents in Peninsular Malaysia. Methods: We investigated data on 770 female respondents aged 13-17 years in rural areas to identify predictive factors for premarital sexual intercourse. Data were analyzed using bivariate and multivariate regression. Specific socio-demographic factors, psychological and family domains, peer delinquency, and knowledge and attitudes about sexuality were considered in risky sexual behaviors in rural Malay girls. The effects of other covariates for premarital sexual intercourse were controlled by logistic regression model. Results: Of the 770 rural female students, about 3.2% of respondents reported experience of sexual intercourse in the past three months. Out of those sexually active girls, 36% were 17 years old and 20% stated having sexual intercourse with more than one partner, and 72% did not use contraception during the most recent sexual intercourse. Midnight activities, peer-sexual disorder, self-evaluation, and attitude toward sexual health were significant predictors of sexual intercourse in rural girls in Malaysia. Conclusion: The finding highlights the impact of psychological factors and peer group influences on the challenges of premarital sexual behavior among rural girls and the notion of school-based sexual health education for adolescents. This study triggers other researchers take into account a comprehensive view of protective factors operating in adolescents’ risky sexual behaviors in Asian culture seeing that family domain variables, unexpectedly, exerted no predicting influence on sexually active female teens in rural areas in Malaysia.

The Effect of the Ownership and Usage of New Human Capital Change on the Economic Empowerment Amongst Orang Kuala in Malaysia

Orang Kuala as the sub tribe of Orang Asli (indigenous people in Malaysia) cannot avoid the changes in which occurs around them. For the indigenous people, the change is always perceived as a threat which endangering their traditional human capital. It is rarely that the change is observed from a positive view in which it give them a chance to change their life and compete with the other community. In case of Orang Kuala, they are now participating in business-base economic activities and left the former traditional economic activities as fishermen. Their participation in business activities will alter their traditional human capital and push them to use a new human capital. The positive side of their involvement is that their economic activities will be empowered. This occurs due to the assumption that their engagement in business activities can help them to achieve economic empowerment. To scrutinize the truth, this article has two objectives; to identify the ownership and use of new human capital and to identify whether the new human capital is a factor to economic empowerment. This paper used a quantitative approach which has been conducted on 267 Orang Kuala in Johor, Malaysia. The study showed, the ownership and the use of new human capital are greater amongst businessmen as compared to fishermen. The study also showed that the ownership of new human capital is the factor of economic empowerment without differential amongst the difference of Orang Kualas occupations.

Perception andCommunity Development among Youths in the Niger-Delta Region of Nigeria

This article discusses perception among youths based on the outcome results from a research conducted on Shell petroleum development company (SPDC) community development program for youths and business development in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria. The study explores the relationship of perception to community development among youths (CDY) and the extent it can predict it. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey by using self-administered questionnaire and simple random sampling as its sampling techniques. Sample size of 322 emerged from 2125 youths who benefited from SPDCs micro credit loan designed for youths and business development in the region based on the list provided by the micro-credit scheme for agricultural development (MISCAD). Instrument of assessment in this study was derived from literatures in line with indicators of measuring each of the construct variables as the test and retest prove the instrument to be valid and reliability since the cronbachs alpha of the constructs recording not less than 0.604. Descriptive, Pearsons correlation and Standard multiple regression analyses were used to break down the data. Findings from the outcome of the result show that there is strong relationship between perception and community development (CD) among youths (r = 0.338, p = 0.0001). Furthermore, the construct of interest which shapes perception was discovered as the major predictor of CD among youth. The study recommends that increasing factor that spurs youths interest should be encouraged in CD programs among youths.

Application of GIS in Orang Asli community profiling

This applied study integrates both, social science and hard science in community development. Community capital inventory mapping assisted with GIS application is a way forward to hasten the Orang Asli (indigenous people) community development programme planning. Backwardness is always associated with this minority. There are many reasons for this, and of them is may contribute by the unmatched between communitys need and capability of the development program. This study aims at identifying and locating the community capital among the Orang Asli. A total of nine villages and 773 Orang Asli involved in this pioneer study. The study comprised three phases; phase 1 is about a social survey; phase 2 is tracking location in digital map (hard science component); and phase 3 is the integration process between soft science (primary data from the social survey) and hard science to develop the community capital digital map. This paper discusses the process of community capital inventory mapping.