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Article History

Received: 11 August 2025

Accepted: 16 December 2025

First Online: 28 December 2025

Declarations

:

: This research was conducted in accordance with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki and received ethical approval from the Basic and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee (BaSSREC) in the Faculty of Humanities, North-West University. The approval was granted on September 8, 2023. Ethics number: NWU-01029-23-A7. However, the study used secondary data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), which is available for free upon request, and therefore, there was no consent form. This data is publicly available and ethical approval was done by ICF International and local authorities in South Africa. The DHS Program ensures that all data are anonymized before being made public, safeguarding the identities of survey respondents. For more information about the ethical procedures followed by the DHS, please visit: .

: Both authors have approved the submission of the manuscript.

: The authors declare no competing interests.