Intimate Partner Violence in Relation to Husband Characteristics and Women Empowerment: Evidence from Nepal.

Sujan Gautam,Hyoung-Sun Jeong

doi:10.3390/ijerph16050709

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the magnitude of intimate partner violence (IPV) and associated factors among women in Nepal. The secondary data from the Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2016 was used. This study was confined to the respondents selected for the domestic violence module. The association between experience of IPV ‘ever’ and ‘in the past year’ with selected factors were examined by using Chi-square test, followed by multivariate logistic regression. Complex sample analysis procedure was adopted to adjust for multi-stage sampling design, cluster weight, and sample weight. The result revealed that 26.3% of ever-married women experienced any form of IPV at some point in their lives, while only 13.7% has experienced any form of IPV in the past year. The factors associated with both ‘lifetime’ and ‘past year’ experience of IPV includes women witnessing parental violence during their childhood, the husband being drunk frequently, women being afraid of their husband most of the times, and women whose husbands shows marital control behavior. Women’s experiencing IPV was associated more with husband related factors than with women’s empowerment indicators. Reducing IPV requires a commitment to changing the norms that promote the husband’s behavior of controlling his wives and beating her.

Highlights

The World Conference on Human Rights, 1993, recognized violence against women as a violation of human rights and contributed to the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, 1993
39.6% were in the age group 35–49 years; 30.2% had Brahmin/Chhetri ethnicity; 37.6% were poor; 59.9% and 6.2% were from the urban area and Karnali province respectively
43.4% were never afraid of their husband; 55.7% and 65.7% reported that their husbands did not drink alcohol and did not show any marital control behavior to them, respectively

Summary

Introduction

The World Conference on Human Rights, 1993, recognized violence against women as a violation of human rights and contributed to the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, 1993. According to the UN, violence against women is defined as; “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, when occurring in public or in private life” [1]. Intimate partner violence (IPV) refers to “any behavior by an intimate partner that leads to physical, sexual or psychological harm, including physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse, and controlling behaviors” [2]. IPV as a subset of gender-based violence against women is often treated as domestic violence under the law. The new constitution of Nepal 2015 (part 3), has guaranteed equal rights for women, and protection against any forms of violence [3].

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Discussion

Conclusion