Gender-Based Violence

This paper explores the association between men’s physical wife abuse and one aspect of quality of life (QOL), namely life satisfaction among perpetrators using data from a population based cross-sectional survey of 1,507 ever-married men aged 18-49. The survey was conducted between January and June 2011 in one urban and one rural area of Bangladesh.
The results show that physical wife abuse was highly prevalent in Bangladesh (54% in the urban site and 53% in the rural site). Linear regression analysis revealed that perpetration of this abuse was associated with an increased mean life dissatisfaction score of men by 0.23 in the urban and by 0.24 in the rural site.
This finding deepens our understanding of impact of violence against women on QOL. Also, it suggests that intimate partner violence against women needs to be addressed for improving life satisfaction of the male perpetrators. It is also possible that improving men’s life satisfaction, related to other areas may contribute to a decreased likelihood of perpetration of this violence. This important finding indicates that men themselves can benefit from ending violence against women and bears implications for advocacy, policy and programs in the domains of both QOL and intimate partner violence.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons (WHO). More than 100 million women and girls are estimated to have had FGM worldwide, mostly from the African continent. Every year around 2 million girls are at risk of mutilation. FGM being an inhuman practice, it is a also a violation of child rights. FGM can result into short and long term complications in the women like pain, hemorrhage, urine retention, infection, shock, infertility, menstrual difficulties, problem in pregnancy and childbirth and pelvic infections. Thus this paper attempts to study the differences in the obstetric outcomes and women’s health among cut and uncut women in Kenya. Some of the key findings indicate that Women with FGM are significantly more likely than those without FGM to have adverse obstetric outcomes. Discriminant analysis have been carried out to examine the within group and between group discriminants.

The study aims to analyze the gap between perception and actual behavior of Indian husbands about the sexual rights of their wives, using NFHS (2005-06)data. Comparison is done between whole India and the HIV prevalent states, the results showing far narrow gap in the latter. 90 percent of Indian husband has a positive perception about wife sexual rights. However, a wide gap prevails between their perception and behaviors; evident from the figure that about 85-95 percent husbands of the victimized wife uphold a positive perception. Young, poor, Muslims, nonworking and alcoholic men have more propensity to break their own supportive ideals forcing their wives for unwanted sex. In the HIV prevalent states of India, wives experience less unwanted sex supposedly due to their high literacy and empowerment as compared to whole India. Moreover, there is a consistency in the perception and behavior of the husbands in these states.

Violence against women (VAW) is widespread in India and particularly in Bihar. Qualitative research was undertaken in Bihar to explore the context of VAW, and notably the characteristics and motivations of men who did not perpetrate violence on their wife. The study comprised 21 focus group discussions (FGDs) with unmarried and married women and men; a screening form for all 82 married women in FGDs; and in-depth interviews with 21 husbands identified in screening as violent or non-violent. Findings highlight that while violent and non-violent men were similar in many ways, the non-violent were less likely than the violent to have experienced gendered socialisation, peer pressure and violence while growing up. At the time of interview, they had a larger peer network, were less likely to be involved in physical fights, and less likely to report alcohol misuse. They were also less likely to display inegalitarian gender attitudes, for example, that their wife deserved to be beaten if she was ‘disobedient’ or made a ‘mistake.’ Finally, while they placed value on peace and marital harmony, violent men justified violence as conforming to traditional notions of masculinity. Findings offer considerable insights for interventions for men that aim to stop VAW.

As we know that intimate partner violence is understood as a women’s issue, while men are often ignored by mainstream study, especially in the Thai context. This study aims at exploring intimate partner violence experienced by females and males in terms of being perpetrators and victims.
The study used data from the Kanchanaburi demographic Surveillance System (KDSS), Thailand which was collected in 2010. The sample was 611 males and 826 females aged 18-59 years old. The analysis focused on gender and physical intimate partner violence by employing descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis.
It was found that 17.1% of females reported lifetime experience of intimate partner violence while 14.3% of males did. Considering experience of being perpetrators and victims of intimate partner violence, it revealed that 12.7 % of female reported being perpetrators and 15.4 % being victims. While males reported that 13.8 % of them experienced being perpetrators and 9.0 % being victims.
The results from this study confirm that women are more likely to be victims while men are more likely to be perpetrators. However, both males and females are victims of such violence. The campaign for eradicating intimate partner violence should focus not only on males but also females.

Violence within marriage is not uncommon in India. Mainly husband perpetrates physical and sexual violence on wife. However, not much is known about the predictors of such violence from married men and women’s perspective separately. Youth in India study, a sub nationally representative survey, help us to explore this dimension minutely. About one fourth of married men and women perpetrated physical violence and experienced the same respectively, while one in three young women reported coercive sex perpetrated by husband. The result reveals that married men with higher age at marriage residing in non nuclear family and urban parts, with better economic condition are less likely to carry out physical violence. Consumption of drug and alcohol, extra marital relation and witnessing own violence at childhood; enhance the chance of physical violence in marital life. Interestingly men who have witnessed parental violence in childhood are less likely to commit both form of violence. North- South divides are also distinct; experience of physical violence is more in the south while for sexual violence it is other way round. Love marriage perpetrates more violence while non payment of dowry enhances the chances of less violence.

Which factor needs the highest attention to reduce Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) against women in Bangladesh is the aim of this study. We used data from currently married women only of age 15-49 years from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2007. Univariate, bivariate techniques and multivariate logistic regressions were performed. The results show that 24% women experienced any form of IPV. The most experienced form is slap and the main reason reported is without any reason. The youngest, working women are more likely to experience IPV than their respective counterparts. Muslim respondents are significantly more likely to report experiencing violence. Spousal violence is less for respondents with more marital duration; and with increases of age at first marriage IPV decreases. Unskilled labors reported experiencing more violence than other occupational groups; and respondents also reported having more IPV with husbands from unskilled labor group. Spousal violence is more among those respondents whose mothers have ever been beaten by their father, and who thinks wife beating is justified to them. Finally father ever hit or beat respondent’s mother is found to be the most significant factor for IPV which needs urgent attention to reducing this important social problem.

This paper is based from the 2011 Indonesian Gender and Reproductive Health Survey of Year 6 and Year 12 students, teachers and school principals (N=8972). The aim is to evaluate students’ and teachers’ understanding and reporting of sexual harassment. In Indonesia sexual harassment has started to be introduced in Year 5 in Sport and Healthy Living education. Our bivariate and logistic regression analysis showed female teachers were more likely to classify behaviour as sexual harassment comparing to male teachers. There are some provincial differences where teachers in South Sulawesi were the least likely to classify any behaviour as constituting sexual behaviour compared to teachers in other provinces. Teachers in religious schools were significantly more likely to classify behaviour such as being touched, touching in the genital area, being forced to touch another’s genitals, forced to be naked, rape and being treated as a sexual object as sexual harassment compared to teachers in non-religious schools. Among students, if harassed, girls were more likely to report and take action compared to boys. Year 6 students were more likely to report harassment to parents, police or teachers and school principals while Year 12 students will handle the matter themselves.

Gender-based domestic violence (GDV) has remained a major concern in India. Though, in the past, studies have identified intergenerational exposure to domestic violence as one of the major contributors, there is almost no evidence on the extent and determinants of intergenerational transmission of GDV in India. Using data from a sub-nationally representative study (Youth in India: Situation and Needs (2006-2007)), we investigate the extent and the patterns of intergenerational transmission of GDV (wife beating) in India. Our initial findings indicate that India suffers from substantial intergenerational persistence (low mobility) of GDV; e.g., we find about 41% of the ever married males whose fathers have ever beaten their mothers, to be involved in wife beating. Similarly, about 66% of the never married males whose fathers have ever beaten their mothers feel that it is alright to beat their wives. Strangely, about 66% and 50% of the unmarried females whose mothers were ever beaten and never beaten by their fathers, respectively feel that it is alright to be beaten by their husbands. There are considerable variations in these figures by location, wealth status, caste and religion.

Despite several recent studies documenting high rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among gay and bisexual men (GBM), the literature is silent regarding GBM’s perceptions of IPV within their community, or the perceptions of the helpfulness of a hypothetical police response to a male victim of male-perpetrated. Data were drawn from a 2011 survey of venue-recruited GBM (n=1,041) and analyzed through chi-square tests and logistic regression. Participants were asked how helpful the police would be in the hypothetical situations of both a gay/bisexual male experiencing IPV and a heterosexual female experiencing IPV. Although the majority of respondents had similar perceptions of the commonness and severity of IPV in GBM compared to heterosexual women, the majority of the sample (58.6%) reported perceiving that contacting the police would be less helpful for a gay/bisexual male victim of IPV than for a heterosexual female victim of IPV. In logistic regression, associations were found between increasing experiences of homophobic discrimination and this comparatively negative view of police response. This learned anticipation of rejection by protective legal forces should be considered as the response to male-male intimate partner violence grows.