Perception and Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence among Marginalized Population in India

Ravisankar Kulasekaran, Annamalai University

Objectives: analyse attitude of marginalized women towards accepting/justifying women being beaten/physically mistreated by their husbands explore incidence of emotional, physical, and sexual spousal violence against marginalized women and its correlates, Methods: Data drawn from 14798 married Schedule Caste women in India (NFHS-III). Logistic regression analysis has been tried to examine effects of SED variables on attitude towards and prevalence of IPV and also its correlate with reproductive and sexual health problems. Results: About half of marginalized women have justified, intimate partner violence for some reasons. The percentages approving/justifying of wife-beating by husband were comparatively high among rural residents, illiterates, poorest families, illiterate’s partner and women with long marital duration. In general, probability of experiencing any one kind of physical violence increases with higher age of the women, higher occupational status, higher marital duration and with husbands’ drinking alcohol habit. Overall, 17percent experienced emotional violence and about 11percent experienced sexual violence.