Intimate Violence Research Articles

The impact of an intervention program on abusive intimate behaviors, self-esteem, and self-concept of male perpetrators of intimate partner violence

This study examines the effectiveness of a multimodal perpetrator intervention program (PIP) on intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators’ self-reported abusive behaviors, self-esteem, and self-concept. A sample of 53 male IPV perpetrators, both court- and self-referred to a community-based PIP, were assigned to one of two conditions: intervention condition (IC; n = 38) and waiting list control condition (WLCC; n = 15). Data on self-reported intimate violence, self-esteem, and self-concept were collected at baseline, post-test, and 6-month follow-up. The Reliable Change Index (RCI) was also computed. A considerable percentage of IC participants end or substantially reduce their abusive behavior (reoffending self-reported rates were 10.7% at post-treatment and 12.5% at follow-up). IC participants increase self-esteem and self-concept. Changes were maintained at follow-up. Significant differences were found between the groups, with IC participants reporting reductions in abusive behaviors, scoring higher on self-esteem and self-concept, and revealing greater clinical changes than WLCC participants. These findings suggest that multimodal interventions improve self-esteem and self-concept and reduce IPV perpetration.

Santé sexuelle et reproductive des femmes ayant des rapports sexuels avec des femmes en Suisse

Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of lesbians and other women who have sex with women (WSW) remains largely unexplored in Switzerland. A cross-sectional web- and pa-per-based survey was conducted in 2012. The aim of this study was to gain more knowledge on the SRH of the WSW in French-speaking Switzerland in order to inform preventive activities and promote more adequate SRH services for these women. Sexual practices between women are very diverse, some of them potentially risky in terms of transmitting various STIs, but 71% of WSW never practice safer sex or other risk reduction strategies for HIV and other STIs with their female partners. Only 69% have had a gynecological check-up in the last 3 years. 16% had one or more children. 29% reported having experienced violence in a lesbian relationship. Specific information on SRH should be developed to match the specificities and needs of WSW and more research is needed on their SRH, their risk regarding breast cancer and ways to improve the cultural sensitivity and knowledge of gynecologists and other health care providers towards their lesbian, bisexual and other WSW patients.

Risk factors for intimate partner emotional violence among women in union in Uganda.

Despite the growing evidence of the prevalence of gender-based violence in Uganda, less is known about the factors influencing intimate partner emotional violence (IPEV) among married women in the country. This study investigated the social demographic factors associated with IPEV among married women aged 15 years and older. The study used the 2016 Uganda Demographic Healthy Survey (UDHS) data. A weighted sample of 5,642 women who had been in a union was selected. A binary logistic regression model was fitted to analyze the predictors of IPEV. Almost four in 10 (38%) married women experienced IPEV. Witnessing parental violence (OR = 1.37, CI = 0.59-0.92), partner's controlling behavior (OR = 4.26, CI = 3.29-5.52), and attaining age 35+ (OR = 1.44, CI = 1.06-1.95) increased the odds of IPEV. Residing in rural areas (OR = 0.004, CI = 0.48-0.99) and having higher education (OR = 0.51, CI = 0.26-1.00) decreased the odds of IPEV. Witnessing parental violence, alcohol consumption, age, place of residence, partner's controlling behavior, and level of education influence IPEV among married women in Uganda. The findings have several implications including strengthening IPEV-prevention campaigns, women empowerment, and alcohol consumption regulations.

Imprisoning Intimacy: The Expanding Sites of Racialized-Gendered Carceral Violence

This study conceptualizes carceral violence to include the intimate sphere, highlighting a form of systemic racialized-gendered violence I term intimate carceral violence, which consists of two distinct violent effects of carcerality on relationships in Black communities: prisonized romance and coercive carceral care. I conducted qualitative interviews with 31 criminal-legal system–impacted Black women aged between 18 and 65 years in Southern California. Findings revealed that their romantic precarity included the challenge of finding partners due to the encroachment of the carceral state on Black communities. This study establishes how women engage in intimate carceral labor to mitigate their experiences of intimate carceral violence. I focus on the hidden work of managing an intimate partner’s emotions and behavior engendered by incarceration.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sexual behaviour and welfare of HIV preexposure prophylaxis users: a mixed-method study

ABSTRACT COVID-19 pandemic can affect people using HIV preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP). To assess its consequences on PrEP users' sexual behaviour and welfare, we conducted a mixed-method study. A self-administered questionnaire was given to PrEP users during scheduled consultation in Tourcoing Hospital from February to May 2021. In addition, a qualitative study included 14 participants who took part in semi-structured in-depth interviews (IDIs). Ninety-four PrEP users completed the questionnaire. During lockdown, 62% of participants continued PrEP. After lockdown release, the average number of sexual intercourses and partners increased from 6 ± 12 to 13 ± 17 intercourses/month (p < 0.001) and from 3 ± 11 to 11 ± 34 partners/month (p < 0.001). Similarly, the proportion of PrEP users who engaged in group sex, sex with alcohol or chemsex increased respectively from 28% to 55% (p < 0.001), 28% to 45% (p < 0.001) and 28% to 38% (p < 0.001). Analysis of IDIs revealed emotional deprivation and sexual frustration during the lockdown. After its release, frequent clandestine chemsex parties and curfew forcing overnight stay increased fears of intimate violence and overdoses. In conclusion, PrEP users reduced their sexual activity during the lockdown. Its release led to an increase in sexual risk-taking. Social distancing measures could favour medical and social harm of sexual risk-taking.

Removing Biases in Communication of Severity Assessments of Intimate Partner Violence: Model Development and Evaluation

To support a victim of violence and establish the correct penalty for the perpetrator, it is crucial to correctly evaluate and communicate the severity of the violence. Recent data have shown these communications to be biased. However, computational language models provide opportunities for automated evaluation of the severity to mitigate the biases. We investigated whether these biases can be removed with computational algorithms trained to measure the severity of violence described. In phase 1 (P1), participants (N=71) were instructed to write some text and type 5 keywords describing an event where they experienced physical violence and 1 keyword describing an event where they experienced psychological violence in an intimate partner relationship. They were also asked to rate the severity. In phase 2 (P2), another set of participants (N=40) read the texts and rated them for severity of violence on the same scale as in P1. We also quantified the text data to word embeddings. Machine learning was used to train a model to predict the severity ratings. For physical violence, there was a greater accuracy bias for humans (r2=0.22) compared to the computational model (r2=0.31; t38=-2.37, P=.023). For psychological violence, the accuracy bias was greater for humans (r2=0.058) than for the computational model (r2=0.35; t38=-14.58, P<.001). Participants in P1 experienced psychological violence as more severe (mean 6.46, SD 1.69) than participants rating the same events in P2 (mean 5.84, SD 2.80; t86=-2.22, P=.029<.05), whereas no calibration bias was found for the computational model (t134=1.30, P=.195). However, no calibration bias was found for physical violence for humans between P1 (mean 6.59, SD 1.81) and P2 (mean 7.54, SD 2.62; t86=1.32, P=.19) or for the computational model (t134=0.62, P=.534). There was no difference in the severity ratings between psychological and physical violence in P1. However, the bias (ie, the ratings in P2 minus the ratings in P1) was highly negatively correlated with the severity ratings in P1 (r2=0.29) and in P2 (r2=0.37), whereas the ratings in P1 and P2 were somewhat less correlated (r2=0.11) using the psychological and physical data combined. The results show that the computational model mitigates accuracy bias and removes calibration biases. These results suggest that computational models can be used for debiasing the severity evaluations of violence. These findings may have application in a legal context, prioritizing resources in society and how violent events are presented in the media.

Factors that provide protection against intimate partner physical violence among married adolescents in Bangladesh

Factors that provide protection against intimate partner physical violence among married adolescents in Bangladesh

Dealing with Intimate Partner Violence and Family Violence in a Regional Centre of Western Australia: A Study of the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Local Social Workers

In the Midwest region of Western Australia, rates of intimate partner and family violence (IPV/FV) are high. We undertook research into social workers' knowledge, attitudes, and skills as part of addressing this significant public health issue. Social workers come into contact with people experiencing IPV/FV in multiple settings, so their understandings and responses are critical to the prevention and interventions related to violence against women. The goal of the research was to determine the issues that the social workers in this region needed to be addressed that could assist in tackling the problem of IPV/FV. A questionnaire included open-ended questions to capture information on respondents' profiles, knowledge, attitudes, practices, and education around IPV/FV, with 29 of 37 social workers working in the region responding. We also elicited respondents' recommendations related to training and service delivery. Despite working in many settings, most social workers had contact with people experiencing IPV/FV and had reasonable confidence and knowledge that showed an understanding of the complexity of FV, including why women stay in violent relationships. This paper identified social workers' need for more education, including during their university training, resources, and service coordination to support best practice delivery of services to people affected by IPV/FV. Training to develop skills for conversations about IPV/FV with clients, around safety planning, and greater access to safe alternative accommodation for those leaving FV were identified priorities.

Review of “Violent Differences: The Importance of Race in Sexual Assault Against Queer Men”

Whose experiences of sexual violence guide our theories? Whose voices shape our visions for social transformation? These are the political and theoretical questions at the center of Doug Meyer’s important book, Violent Differences: The Importance of Race in Sexual Assault Against Queer Men. Throughout the book, Meyer builds an intersectional analysis of sexual violence grounded in queer male survivors’ experiences of assault, with a focus on the complex nexus of race and sexuality. The goal of the book is to decenter whiteness and heterosexuality in research and policy related to sexual violence, and Meyer is successful in showing the audience how this should be done. Woven throughout the text are survivors’ empathetically presented stories, which manage to stand on their own as theoretical statements. But Meyer’s own intersectional analytic is also strong throughout, showing that we cannot understand sexual violence without careful attention of victims’ structural vulnerabilities. Meyer builds on feminist intersectional scholarship to show that experiences of violence are not evenly distributed across social groups; rather, the harms of intimate violence are concentrated in particular social locations, with devastating consequences for the reproduction of racial and sexual inequality.

Domesticity at War: Bringing the War Home in Martha Rosler's "House Beautiful" Wartime Photomontages

The uneven, sometimes violent relationship between “here” and “elsewhere” is evoked powerfully in Martha Rosler’s House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home—two linked sets of photomontages that engage the gender and racial politics of domesticity in the US as well as the geopolitics of empire. Troubling mythologies of warfare and documentary realism with dazzling wit and critical fury, these works refer materially and specifically to places and times of war in solidarity with protest movements while also raising questions of historical linkages and political accountability. Suturing their times and spaces into discontinuous contact, the two series bring together seemingly incommensurate elements—exquisite domestic interiors, glamorous consumer commodities often associated with conventional femininity, and the landscapes and bodies damaged and destroyed by warfare--to produce images of great immediacy and visceral power. Across the long arc of the wars waged by the US from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, Rosler has shown us how the modernist aestheticization of US domesticity in the affluent post-World War II era promised personal empowerment and hopeful futures yet, emerging from warfare itself, only brought about more war.

Introduction: Domestication of War

This Special Section broadens and qualifies the terms through which the relationship between home and militarization has been understood. We do this by joining a vibrant and growing field of transdisciplinary scholars who address the militarization of everyday life by attending to domesticity and practices of domestication. We grapple with how the home naturalizes and becomes a catalyst for militarism: How do ordinary and domestic objects, technologies, spaces, and infrastructures make violence feel at home in the world? We are concerned with the domestic life of militarization as oikos: the household, habitat, and milieu of violent material relationships that are both ongoing and latent. The domestic is not just a discrete, private space; it also extends into public spaces like neighborhoods, local businesses, waste disposal infrastructures, hospices, and crop fields. Developed within an editorial process rooted in a feminist ethos, the articles collected here provide critical and alternative methodologies and disciplinary forms for considering militarism's aesthetics, affects, and modes of appearance. This collection resists conventional spatialities, temporalities, and incarnations of war while calling attention to the obscuring of violence through practices of care and marketing operations.

Factors that provide protection against intimate partner physical violence among married adolescents in Bangladesh.

Intimate partner violence (IPV), and especially intimate partner physical violence (IPPV), perpetrated by husbands, and within adolescence marriage are pervasive in Bangladesh. Younger women are more vulnerable to IPPV. We examined factors associated with IPPV experienced by married adolescents ages 15-19 and tested four hypotheses: (1) adolescent girls married to relatively older husbands, (2) adolescents living in extended families with parents or parents-in-law, (3) adolescents who are minimally controlled by husbands, and (4) adolescents who have a child after marriage are protective of IPPV. We analyzed IPPV data from 1,846 married girls ages 15-19 obtained from a national adolescent survey conducted in 2019-20. IPPV is defined as the respondent having physical violence perpetrated by her husband at least once in the last 12 months. We implemented logistic regression models to test our hypotheses. Sixteen percent of married adolescent girls experienced IPPV. Girls living with parents-in-law or parents had adjusted odds ratio (AOR) of 0.56 (p < 0.001) of IPPV compared to those girls who lived with husband alone. Girls with husbands ages 21-25 years and 26 years or older had AORs of 0.45 (p < 0.001) and 0.33 (p < 0.001) of IPPV compared to those girls with their husband ages 20 and younger. Married adolescent girls who did not own a mobile phone (an indicator of spousal power dynamics) had an AOR of 1.39 (p < 0.05) compared to those girls who had a phone. IPPV risk increases with an increased duration of marriage for those with no living children (p < 0.001) but not for those with at least one living child; the risk was higher among those who had a child within the 1st year of marriage than those who had not yet had a child. At a duration of 4 years and longer, IPPV risk was higher among those with no living children than those with children. Findings related to those living with parents-in-law or parents, girls married to relatively older boys/men, having the ability to communicate with outside world, and having a child are protective of IPPV in Bangladesh are new, to our knowledge. Strictly adhering to the law that requires men waiting until the age of 21 to marry can reduce married girls' risk of IPPV. Raising girls' legal marriage age can minimize adolescents' IPPV and other health risks associated with adolescent childbearing.

Intimate Partner Violence: Views and Perspectives of Young Women at Maputo-city Secondary Schools, Mozambique

Intimate partner violence (IPV) among young women is of serious concern due to the early age of occurrence. This study explored young women’s views about IPV in Maputo City, Mozambique. An explorative, qualitative study design was employed using purposive sampling. The themes were developed in line with the socio-ecological model and the data were analyzed using a thematic content approach. Four themes emerged: (1) Individual level, related to the knowledge of young women about IPV; (2) Relationship level, related to the influence of friends; (3) Community level, related to the religious beliefs; and (4) Societal level, related to factors promoting acceptance of IPV. There is need for an integrated approach to address the individual, relationship, community and societal concerns about IPV among young women in Mozambique to improve skills to challenge the dominant male norms and enhance their autonomy to manage and end violent relationships.

The social representation of slangs in the experience of today’s affective relationships of young people

Currently, it is observed that the slangs are used to name affective relationships. The aim of the present study was to analyze how young people name, using slang or not, and describe their affective experiences. This is a qualitative research, carried out with students from a health college in Recife-PE, in 2022. A sociodemographic questionnaire and interview were used. Students aged 18 to 25 years of both sexes in an affective relationship participated. The thematic analysis resulted in four categories: definition and importance of the affective relationship; commenting on slang and affective relationships; importance of slang related to affective relationships; social contribution of slang. The results conclude that young people use the slangs crush, ficante and peguete to name their relationships, however, they present some divergences regarding their connotation, concept and behavioral description. Further studies on the subject are suggested to minimize the likelihood that the use of such slang will result in violence in relationships.

Women Who Kill Abusive Men: The Limitations of Loss of Control, Provocation and Self-Defence in England and Wales and Canada

In England and Wales, the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, (CJA), s. 55(3) introduced into statute ‘fear of serious violence’ as a ground (or ‘a trigger’) for loss of control manslaughter. It was intended to take into account the circumstances of women who in self-preservation kill abusive and violent intimate partners. Despite this important reform, a woman who defends herself from a partner's abuse and violence in both manslaughter and self-defence pleadings continues to be assessed with reference to a masculinist interpretation of what is reasonable through the anthropomorphic ‘reasonable man/person,’ and loss of control still underpins voluntary manslaughter. In Canada, the homicide provisions in the Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46, were amended in 2012 to reframe the law of self-defence (s. 34) and in 2015 to revise the law of provocation by which culpable homicide can be reduced to manslaughter (s. 232), with neither amendment accounting explicitly for the circumstances of women who kill abusive partners. In both jurisdictions despite revisions to the legal construct of ‘loss of control manslaughter’ (England and Wales) or the provocation defence (Canada), the common law underpinnings of these defences and jurors’ perceptions of what constitutes or what can trigger ‘loss of control’ continues to inform such pleadings whilst the law on self-defence (with its masculinist requirements and interpretation of proportionality and reasonableness) remains largely inaccessible to the abused woman who defends herself from an intimate partner's violence and abuse. This article explores the legal developments in both jurisdictions and their limitations through an analysis of the substantive law and recent case law. The number of women who kill violent and abusive partners and the legal outcomes, the methods used to kill and the ways in which substantive law and legal actors disadvantage those who use a weapon eschewing women's disproportionate size and strength, are all considered. The article concludes with proposals for further reform.

Survivors' Experiences of Sexual Assault by Intimate Partners: A Qualitative Study of Survivors and their Informal Supports.

The current study's purpose was to examine sexual assault survivors' experiences where intimate partner violence was mentioned as part of their narratives. Survivors and their informal support providers (SP; e.g., family, friends, romantic partners) were interviewed separately about disclosure, social reactions, and help-seeking following assault. Twenty-nine survivors and 12 informal support persons they told about their assaults mentioned survivor experiences of IPV-related sexual assault (IPVS). Several themes emerged from the analysis of codes related to the traumatic event of IPV: 1) Severe physical violence in an intimate partner relationship; 2) use of violence for sexual gratification; 3) connecting trauma to other behavior, 4) unwanted duty and redefining abuse, and 5) state responses to IPVS. Implications are drawn for future research and practice on IPVS with survivors and their informal support networks.

How Criminal Is It to Rape a Partner According to the Justice System? Analysis of Sentences in Spain (2015–2022)

Sexual violence in an intimate relationship is a less studied phenomenon than other forms of intimate partner violence, despite data pointing to a high prevalence. Studies on how the cases are sentenced are scarce. Until recently, many laws did not allow marital rape to be punished as a crime of rape, and some studies showed a tendency for the courts to punish these cases less severely. The present study is based on an analysis of 964 rape cases of adult women in Spain. All the information was extracted from sentences of the Provincial Courts issued between 2015 and 2022. Results showed that significantly lower conviction rates and less severe penalties were imposed when the rape was committed by the intimate partner compared to other rape cases where the offenders were not partners (family members, acquaintances, or unknown strangers). The practical implications of these results in several areas are discussed.

Особенности насилия в сиблинговых отношениях: сравнительный анализ отечественных и зарубежных публикаций

&lt;p&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-US"&gt;The article presents the results of a qualitative analysis of scientific publications on the problem of violence in sibling relations on domestic and foreign information platforms. It is shown that the problem of violence in sibling relationships has been studied for about 100 years and has a rich history and a wide study space. Unfortunately, among the scientific publications on the problem under consideration, there is an insufficient number of domestic studies. The data obtained made it possible to identify areas of study of the problem and conduct a qualitative comparative analysis of the text material, including the names of articles, their annotations and the text of open access articles. The study identifies the following main areas of consideration of violence among siblings: characteristics of violence (personal characteristics of siblings and their relationships); forms of violence (physical, sexual, psychological, etc.); the health effects of violence on siblings (ranging from bruises, bites to death); methods of psychological assistance and diagnosis of violence (methods of assistance, diagnostic tools and their sensitivity to the study of the problem); factors of violence among siblings (biological, psychological, social, etc.); intergenerational transmission of domestic violence (mechanisms of transmission and features of manifestation), the influence of violence among siblings on relations with others (social space of siblings). As special topics for the study of violence among siblings, the following are highlighted: crimes between siblings; sibling violence during the pandemic; the innocuous perception of violence among siblings; violence among siblings in movies; religious aspects of Sibling violence. Comparative analysis made it possible to establish the dominant problems and their interrelation, as well as the place of violence in sibling relationships in the development of their personality, family space, in personal life, as well as in relations with the social environment.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Barriers to domestic violence education in Northern Ireland: Pupils' views and experiences

AbstractDomestic violence (DV) in adult and young people's intimate partner relationships is a social and public health problem across the globe. Education can play an important and unique role in addressing DV; however, it remains relatively under‐investigated. The aim of this qualitative study set in Northern Ireland, the first of its kind, was to explore young people's views and experiences of DV education. Focus groups were conducted with 188 pupils (97 males and 91 females) aged 16 to 18 attending post‐primary school. The data were analysed using thematic analysis and reveal five barriers to DV education: (1) absence of DV teaching and learning; (2) DV is a taboo topic; (3) lack of teacher training and expertise on DV; (4) religious influence; (5) prioritisation of academic achievement over pupil wellbeing. The results demonstrate that changes are needed in schools to improve the role of schools in addressing DV. From this qualitative study, we make recommendations for how school‐based DV education may help prevent and protect young people against intimate partner violence.

Women's and Men's Status: Revisiting the Relationship Between Gender Equality and Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in Europe.

The first European Union Survey on Violence against Women (EU-VAW) released in 2014 revealed the unexpected result indicating that the world's most egalitarian countries have relatively high rates of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women (IPVAW). This phenomenon, referred to as the "Nordic Paradox," revived a heated, intermittently ongoing discussion dating back four decades where several competing hypotheses about the relationship between gender inequality and IPVAW have been proposed, but no consensus has been reached. The main aim of this paper is to revisit the most important of such hypotheses proposed in the last four decades, while proposing a new one that could potentially throw some light on understanding the "Nordic Paradox." Multilevel linear regression models are estimated using data from the EU-VAW survey conducted in 2012, and an alternative operationalization of the Gender Equality Index (GEI) (our measure of gender equality). We did not find any significant effect of gender equality on IPVAW repetition. However, we found that higher country-level status of women and men go together with less IPVAW, with a larger effect of women's status in economic domains compared to the impact of men's economic status, and a larger effect of men's overall status. These findings support the Marxist feminist hypothesis, stating that women's absolute status in the economic and labor domain is critical in lessening IPVAW, as women's real and potential access to resources is key for leaving a violent relationship. At the same time, our results support the "male privilege protection" hypothesis, which states that gains in women's status in certain domains-such as in the economic sphere considering our results for the European Union-would not suppose a threat to men, allowing ameliorative effects. In contrast, if the overall status of men is threatened, backlash effects would be triggered.