Children's chewing qat phenomenon in the Yemeni society
MENA Dubai 2003 Abstract
Author Najat Sayem
Copy Chewing qat is one of those phenomena that require a great deal of attention and consideration due to its negative effects that throw black, dark shadows over the life of Yemeni people. This creates a burden on them. This burden is of psychological, social, economic, and health problems. Though these mentioned problems; the reality shows this bad phenomenon has become nowadays in a more spreading and increasing status, than the past days, among all society classes; men, women, educated, illiterate, old and even small children.

It is noticed that the number of small children, who chew qat among all society classes, is also increasing rapidly. Even some families allow their children in the age of five or six to chew qat. Because children are half of the present and the whole future, it is our duty to protect them from falling into the whirl of chewing qat and protect them from the negative consequences on their psychological, physical health and their entire future life. This research about chewing qat among children is considered as the third phase of many phases that the researcher is doing about the phenomenon of chewing qat in the Yemeni society. The researcher has done the first phase, which is about Women's motivations towards attending chewing qat meetings. Second phase is about Yemeni youth's motivation toward chewing qat. The current research aims at identifying the psychological and social reasons that make Yemeni children of 7–15 years old to chew qat.

To realize the objective of the research, the researcher formulated the following inquiries: What are the psychological, social reasons behind children to chew qat? Are these reasons variants due to the residency place; urban or rural? Are these reasons variants due to the family circumstances? The research sample is 400 qat-chewer children from Sana'a, Aden, Taiz, and Hodida. This sample has been randomly chosen. The researcher prepared a measurement that was applied on the sample to measure the reasons that make the children to chew qat. The following statistical tools were used: Percentages, t-Test.

The data that have been collected is under statistical analysis; however the researcher expects to get a great deal of information that will identify different reasons that stand behind the qat chewing among small children in the Yemeni society. The researcher will explain the found statistical result in a complete presentation within the final form of the research.