OPVLs:

"National Research Project on Violence Against Women in Palau." Palau Ministry of Health.

2014. Accessed May 23, 2017. http://evaw-global-

database.unwomen.org/-/media/files/un%20women/vaw/vaw%20survey/palau%20vaw

%20survey.

This source is a national research project preformed by the Palauan ministry of health in 2014.

This research was focused on violence against women occurring in Palau. This contained an extensive

study and statistics based on national surveys, consensuses, a research team, field staff, and a task force.

The purpose of this document is to publicize all statistics available, to provide an accurate

portrayal of the severity of the issue that exists in Palau. It serves as a government document, and as such

policymakers and politicians can use this document to inform their decisions. Furthermore, the document

proposes possible solutions to the abuse problems Palau faces.

In terms of how useful this document is, this source is extremely valuable. This is because not

only is extensive research and investigation very evident, but also because of the very clear and

understandable way that it is presented, making it not only thorough and detailed, but also simple to

comprehend and gain information from. Firstly, this report is extremely thorough, and in addition to the

research provided in the base report, includes over fifty pages of statistics and information found through

their investigation. These statistics are some of the best coming out of the country, due to how extensive

they are for such a small nation, and additionally they are more trustworthy, as they are directly from the

governments national campaign. Additionally, these statistics are given in a way which is very clear to

understand, and working the statistics into their findings allows them to answer either why the statistics

are important, or why the statements they make are true. This is highlighted many times throughout the

report, such as in the statement The most common acts of physical partner violence were being
slapped or having something thrown at them, which is later supported with the fact Nearly 17% of

women reported being slapped or having something thrown at them in their lifetime. This allows for

more in-depth data analysis than if the document were only made of the pages of numbers and statistics,

and makes it more reader friendly. This greatly suits the purpose, as it makes the document very easy to

understand and provides the reader with why the statistics are relevant, which allows anyone doing

research into Palau to easily find poignant and understandable facts and information. Furthermore, the

report contains several sections on both their professional opinions, and civilian interviewees opinions

regarding possible causes and solutions of the problem. This makes the document more feasible for

government use, as it provides policymakers with direct suggestions on what policies could be

implemented to improve the situation, paired with the facts to prove why they would work. This is

highlighted by their Recommendations section in the introduction, which is paired with facts to support

suggestions. An example of this is the suggestion to Strengthen awareness efforts to prevent sexual abuse

of children, as well as mechanisms to protect children in situations of abuse, which is supported by the

evidence that Almost 12% of all respondents experienced sexual abuse before the age of 15, mostly

when respondents were aged 10-14 (55.4%) and when they were aged 5-9 (41.7%). This shows that the

recommendations given in the report are directly based off of factual findings of the research, making the

suggestions more valuable and relevant.

Despite the very high value of this source, it is not without its limitations; The most blaring of

these being the formatting and display of some statistics, as well as the sheer size of the document. Firstly,

many of the statistics are displayed at the very end of the document, after citations and sample interview

and survey application forms. This can make it somewhat hard to find for the average person, and does

not make much sense in terms of the layout of the entire document. Furthermore, many of the data tables

are squished on the pages, making them very hard to read, especially with the volume of information

within them. On top of this, these same squished data tables do not use boxes, and rather a more open

format, and with so much information and so many columns and rows, it can be incredibly challenging to
match numbers with what that number represents, making it somewhat hard to read some data. An

example of one of the worst tables is Table 10.1. Exploration of risk factors for lifetime experience of

physical and/or sexual partner violence, among ever-partnered women, Palau 2013. Not only is this table

spread across two pages, which is not the proper format for scientific data tables, it also has eleven

columns and one hundred and fifty-one rows. This number of rows makes it not only incredibly

challenging to match the number with the rows heading, it also makes it nearly impossible to match them

with the column heading, especially for data on the second page of the table, where the headings are not

shown again. Furthermore, the sheer size of the document, being almost 200 pages long, means that

unless someone looking for information is extremely dedicated to this source, and willing to read it in its

entirety, they could miss some of the very important statistics later in the document. This means that a lot

of the information is easily overlooked, as it is too far in the document for many to read it.

"How Can Therapy Help? ." RAINN. Accessed May 22, 2017.

https://www.rainn.org/articles/how-can-therapy-help.

This source in an informational site created by the RAINN non-government organization. RAINN

is an organization that works to combat violence against women, and the ensuing problems it creates. This

specific section focuses on information about the use of therapy to help nullify negative mental health

effects of abuse that women face after abuse.

The purpose of this source is twofold. It firstly serves to provide information to the public on the

recovery process of women who have experienced abuse, and additionally serves to provide victims of

abuse with information and resources they can contact to seek therapy or mental counselling after the

abuse, as well as resources to help them stop the abuse in the first place.

In terms of value, this source is relatively valuable in how it presents relevant information for

research work and to inform the public, in addition to providing many useful resources to those seeking
help. When it comes to use as a research source, this source provides a good amount of information

pertaining to how therapy can help women deal with the mental health issues that are tied to abuse. The

source includes specific information on what assistance and resources the therapy provides the recipient

with, such as new coping skills, ways to deal with your feelings, and strategies for managing stress.

Furthermore, in terms of the informations usefulness to an actual victim of abuse, this source is

immensely valuable, as it provides what the victim should look for in a therapist, what degrees and

education therapists actually have, how to find and/or change therapists, and addresses many of the

common reservations and concerns that people have about seeking therapy, such as how some people are

concerned that starting therapy means entering into a lifelong contract. On top of this information, the

site provides them with a phone number to contact for someone who is trained to help, in addition to an

online chat line and a Therapy Exploitation Link to a site where they can report any problems with their

therapists or ask any questions about abuse they may have experienced from those in the medical field,

such as a therapist. This plethora of resources means the site goes above and beyond the purpose of

providing information and resources to victims, and it leaves a victim with a multitude of potential

options for post-abuse counselling help.

As valuable as this source is, there are some limitations that could be changed to make it even

more valuable, such as more information on what the actual therapist does throughout the therapy

sessions, and more statistics to prove the usefulness of therapy. Firstly, although a great amount of

information is provided on what help therapy can provide to a victim, there is a lack of information as to

what a victim actually would have to go through during the session, and what the therapist would be

doing. This could create an issue, as a big problem created by abuse is that it can create a very high level

of fear and stress, and uncertainty as to what they would have to do at therapy could intimidate a victim

out of seeking help. Furthermore, this information could be very useful for someone either looking to get

into the field or just researching the process of therapy and counselling for victims of violence and abuse,

and this information would be very helpful for them. Another big issue is that the site lacks any statistics
to show anything like the rate of success of therapy. Without proof that therapy has been shown to

actually be successful in helping, victims may be dissuaded to seeking it. Furthermore, it makes it hard to

prove that it is useful when doing research on the subject, and thus its inclusion as a viable option for

post-abuse help can be questioned without a good answer from this source.

"Palau Gender Profile." Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Accessed May 22, 2017.

http://www.forumsec.org/resources/uploads/attachments/documents/Palau_Gender_Profi

le.

This source is a Gender Profile of Palau provided by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. This

profile includes historical information on the nation, and how this impacts the current status of gender

rights. In addition to this, it includes information on government actions pertaining to the issue, and

provides a basic outline on some of the most prevalent gender issues, such as a lack of women in

leadership roles, unequal access to economic resources, and high levels of violence against women.

The purpose of this source is to provide very basic information to those seeking information on

the issue, which is evidenced by the inclusion of very important Palauan historical information and

information on the societal norms of Palau, which most Palauans or experts on the issues in Palau are

likely to know very well. It provides a basic overview, acting as a framework for further research.

This document proved to be a very useful launching point for the rest of my research, due to its

outline of some of the history of Palau, which was extremely relevant and important in my research, as it

displayed how unique the situation Palau is facing is. It provides very interesting information such as how

In traditional and customary governance, Palauan women hold powers that are almost unequalled by

women elsewhere, and how the reason this did not evolve into strong female leadership was due to the

powers women held being undermined by imperialists. This provided very interesting and important

information, as a nations history at least from a constructivist standpoint, directly impacts the societal
and social structure of a nation. This information is very useful to someone coming into research without

much knowledge of Palau, as it briefly summarizes a good portion of the islands history. Furthermore,

this source worked very well as a basic launching pad for my further research. This was because this

paper introduced and outlined many points that are issues in Palau, paired with a statistic or two, but then

did not delve very much further into the subject. This provided me with a lot of fields to further explore,

and really helped guide my research.

As useful as this source was, it did contain a few limitations which hindered its usefulness. Two

such limitations were a lack of suggestions for further research, on top of a Recommendations section

that was highly lacking. As this source was an incredibly basic outline, which was to be used by people to

get a basic understanding, and to help guide any further research, it would have been extremely logical for

this source to contain some sort of further readings section, with suggestions to sources that allow for

further research of the topic. Most other similar sources I used contained at least some references to other

good reports where more information on a topic could be found, something which this source sorely

needed. Especially when you consider the purpose of the source, to help guide research for those who are

newer to the subject, it would greatly improve the source if there was some way of going deeper into

research through references made by the source. Another limitation was that the end Recommendations

section seemed incredibly under-developed. Other similar sources, such as the national research project

on Palau contained recommendations sections with unique recommendations that were clearly directly

guided by their research. This added a further depth to the sources, as it allowed the reader to begin to

think about how these issues could actually be resolved. In this source however, the recommendations

were directly taken from Palau in the Situation Analysis Report on Children, Youth and Women and

from the 2011 Universal Periodic Report. This resulted in recommendations that werent obviously

connected to research and facts presented earlier in the document. On top of this, no effort was made to

provide any statistics or proof along with the recommendations to suggest why the recommendations

would actually work. Overall, this made the source less useful in comparison to similar sources in regard
to information about how to actually solve the issue, which took away a large amount of value from the

document.