Domestic violence: A hidden and deeply rooted health issue in India

Abstract

Domestic violence was identified as a major contributor to the global burden of ill health in terms of female morbidity leading to psychological trauma and depression, injuries, sexually transmitted diseases, suicide and murder. The study was conducted to find out the prevalence of different types of life time domestic violence against women; factors associated with it and care seeking behavior. An observational cross-sectional study was done among 260 ever married women of 15-49 years of age using a predesigned pretested pro-forma from April 2011 to January 2012 by face to face interview. Data were compiled and analyzed by Epi Info 6 version and SPSS 17 version. The overall prevalence of any form of violence during the life time among the study population was 40.4%. Verbal/ psychological violence was the most common form of domestic violence (85.7%) followed by physical (71.4%) and sexual violence (57.1%). Slapping and or beating, kicking, object throwing were the major forms of physical violence; humiliation (91.1%) was the commonest form of psychological violence and most common form of sexual violence was forced sexual intercourse (58.3%). About 21% of the study population faced violence every day. Older age, lower age at marriage, longer duration of marriage, lower education of husband and wife, lower family income, unemployment of the husband and alcohol consumption of husband were associated with occurrence of domestic violence. We have found that the prevalence of domestic violence in this group of population is high. The alarming issue is that approximately one third of women (31.24%) who faced violence in their life-time had never sought any help. The findings indicate to develop appropriate and culturally relevant public health interventions to increase awareness and implement policies regarding violence against women.The WHO Multi-country Study on 'Women's Health and Domestic Violence Against Women' indicated that the range of lifetime physical violence by a male, intimate partner, ranged from 13% in Japan to 61% in Peru with most sites falling between 23% and 49%; range of lifetime prevalence of sexual violence by an intimate partner was between 6% (Japan) and 59% (Ethiopia) with most sites falling between 10% and 50%; range of lifetime prevalence of physical or sexual violence, or both, by an intimate partner, was 15% to 71% with most sites ranged from 30% to 60%. 3 Likewise, regarding current violence -

Study of domestic violence against married women in the field practice area of urban health training centre, Aurangabad, Maharashtra

“…This was similar with the findings of Bhattacharya et al where the reported violence was multiple in nature and most of the women were subjected to more than one type of violence. 7 So far as the types of violence were concerned, 57.38% women experienced physical violence by partner, followed by 50.82% women who experienced emotional violence by the partner and only 8.2% experienced sexual violence by partner. Sinha et al, a study conducted in Kolkata slum from 159 married women observed prevalence of physical violence as 35.84% and emotional 54% and respectively which supports our findings.…”

Epidemiology of domestic violence among married women: a community based cross-sectional study

“…The data collected indicates that out of 272 women, married before 18 years, about 43 percent reported that they were abused as against about 34 percent of the respondents who married after 18 years of age and this was statistically significant. In a study of Yugantar Education Society 6 and Bhattacharya et al 10 , also a positive association was observed between the age at marriage and incidence of domestic violence against women.…”

“…Result of the study carried out by Bhattacharya A et al also revealed that population with unemployed husbands reported more violence (81.25%) than their counterparts with employed husbands (34.65%). 10 The study disclosed that out of 600 respondents 492 were married, about 6 percent were widows, about 5 percent were re-married, about 4 percent were divorced, and 2.50 percent were separated. It is observed that out of 15 separated women about 79 percent were victims of violence.…”

“…Similar result found by Bhattacharya et al that as the socio economic condition of respondents became better, prevalence of domestic violence decreased. 10 About 32 percent of the respondents were living in nuclear families and about 68 percent in joint families. Out of 195 respondents from nuclear families about 32 percent were exposed to domestic violence and out of 405 respondents living with joint families about 41 percent were victims of domestic violence.…”

Violence against Women - An Emerging Health Issue in North East India

“…Other studies also reported husbands to be the major committers of domestic violence. [4,[18][19][20][21][22] Sinha et al study also reported husbands to be the the major perpetrators (81.2%) followed by in-laws and other family members. A rather disquieting proportion of 7.1% of the respondents reported physical violence while they were pregnant.…”