Abstract

This study examined the relationship between women’s empowerment and different dimensions of emotional violence in Zimbabwe using cluster analysis and logistic regression. We used data from the 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey, a nationally representative household study of fertility, health, and mortality indicators among women aged 15 to 49 years. Our sample consisted of 2,966 currently partnered women at the time of the survey. Our results revealed that more than 60% of the women had experienced emotional intimate partner violence (IPV), of which controlling behaviors were the most prevalent form. The results showed that women empowerment in Zimbabwe is primarily characterized by economic empowerment, household bargaining power, and freedom of movement. At the same time, educational attainment, health decision-making, and attitudes toward gender-based violence had expected relatively weak empowerment effects. The results also revealed that economically empowered women were less likely to experience denigrating or threatening behaviors, whereas those who had high levels of freedom of movement had a lower risk of experiencing all forms of emotional IPV except for threatening behavior. These findings suggest that emotional IPV is a considerable societal problem in Zimbabwe, and interventions that increase economic empowerment and freedom of movement may reduce the risk. Future research studies may examine the likelihood of reverse causality between women empowerment and emotional IPV.

Highlights

  • Violence against women is considered a major global health and human rights development issue, yet it is often the least punishable crime (Kabir & Khan, 2019; Wekwete et al, 2014; Werwie et al, 2019)

  • We focus on the following emotional intimate partner violence (IPV) dimensions and use data from the 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey (ZDHS)

  • This study examined the association between women empowerment and emotional violence, using cluster analysis and logistic regression

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Summary

Introduction

Violence against women is considered a major global health and human rights development issue, yet it is often the least punishable crime (Kabir & Khan, 2019; Wekwete et al, 2014; Werwie et al, 2019). Recent global statistics show that more than a third of women have been victims of physical or sexual violence from intimate and non-intimate partners at some point in their lives (United Nations, 2020). These figures exclude cases of sexual harassment. Statistics from Zimbabwe indicate that almost a third of young girls have been sexually victimized by the age of 18 years (Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, 2014), while one in four women have experienced violence within an intimate relationship (Bengesai & Khan, 2020)

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