Abstract
SummaryCrimes against women in India have been continuously increasing lately as reported by the National Crime Records Bureau. Gender-based violence has become a serious issue to such an extent that it has been catalogued as a high impact health problem by the World Health Organization. However, there is a lack of spatiotemporal analyses to reveal a complete picture of the geographical and temporal patterns of crimes against women. We focus on analysing how the geographical pattern of ‘dowry deaths’ changes over time in the districts of Uttar Pradesh during the period 2001–2014. The study of the geographical distribution of dowry death incidence and its evolution over time aims to identify specific regions that exhibit high risks and to hypothesize on potential risk factors. We also look into different spatial priors and their effects on final risk estimates. Various priors for the hyperparameters are also reviewed. The risk estimates seem to be robust in terms of the spatial prior and hyperprior choices and final results highlight several districts with extreme risks of dowry death incidence. Statistically significant associations are also found between dowry deaths, sex ratio and some forms of overall crime.
Highlights
Women are one of the most vulnerable groups in terms of violence (Powell and Wahidin, 2007)
The World Health Organization has stated that violence against women is a ‘public health problem of epidemic proportions’ (Ellsberg et al, 2005) with more than 1.6 million women losing their lives through domestic violence
We look into different spatial priors and their effects on final risk estimates
Summary
Women are one of the most vulnerable groups in terms of violence (Powell and Wahidin, 2007). Cultural traditions are based on gender inequality, which in turn contributes to increasing violence against women when the post-colonial process failed to extend equality This is so for India, one of the most populated countries in the world (around 1210 million people, according to the 2011 census), where crimes against women are on the rise and becoming a major issue. Dowries are related to violence against women by husbands and husbands’ relatives, and this is a way of blackmailing the bride’s family if the dowry seems unsatisfactory This form of violence against brides does not stop once the marriage has taken place but continues over time, leading to what is called a dowry death.
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