{"id":4269,"date":"2007-03-22T17:45:14","date_gmt":"2007-03-22T22:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=4269"},"modified":"2007-03-26T12:09:13","modified_gmt":"2007-03-26T17:09:13","slug":"wifebeating_in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/22\/wifebeating_in\/","title":{"rendered":"Wifebeating in India (updated w\/ child abuse figures)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the past, discussions of domestic abuse have run aground because of the lack of good information. In general, we end up agreeing on three points:<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Women are assaulted by their partners in South Asia \n<li>South Asian women are assaulted by their partners in America \n<li>Non South Asian women are assaulted by their partners all over the world as well<\/li><\/ul>\n\n<p>but we always lack the numbers to talk about how bad the problem is in different places and for different communities. For that reason, I thought it was worth flagging this statistic I saw in the recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/004258.html\">NEJM article on AIDS in India<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n<p><center><strong>37.2% of women in India who have been married have experienced spousal violence. <\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n\n<p>That&#8217;s more than 1 in every 3 women in India who has had a husband at some point. The numbers in the article varied by state, and unfortunately they provided these figures for only a handful of states (those where they had HIV figures). Still, <a href=\"http:\/\/content.nejm.org\/cgi\/content\/full\/356\/11\/1089\/T1\">here&#8217;s what it says<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n<p>&lt;<\/p>\n\n<p>p>\n<center><\/p>\n\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" borderColor=#cccccc cellspacing=0 cellpadding=10 bgColor=#ffffff border=1 hspace=\"10\">\n<tr style=\"vertical-align: top\">\n<td>State<\/td>\n<td>%age of women abused<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"vertical-align: top\">\n<td>India overall<\/td>\n<td>37.2%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"vertical-align: top\">\n<td>Delhi<\/td>\n<td>16.3%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"vertical-align: top\">\n<td>Andhra Pradesh<\/td>\n<td>35.2%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"vertical-align: top\">\n<td>Karnataka<\/td>\n<td>20%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"vertical-align: top\">\n<td>Maharashtra<\/td>\n<td>30.7%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"vertical-align: top\">\n<td>Manipur<\/td>\n<td>43.9%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"vertical-align: top\">\n<td>Nagaland<\/td>\n<td>15.4%<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr style=\"vertical-align: top\">\n<td>Tamil Nadu<\/td>\n<td>41.9%<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n<!--more-->\n\n<p>The figures come from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nfhsindia.org\/nfhs3.html\">2005-06 National Family Health Survey<\/a>, and the data involved have not yet been published so I can&#8217;t tell you what figures are available for the other states. I also can&#8217;t find the exact definition that they used in their questionnaire, nor can I tell you how India compares to other countries.<\/p>\n\n<p><strike>Here&#8217;s a different report with a far higher figure, although using a different definition:<\/strike><\/p>\n\n<blockquote><font style=\"background-color: #ffd2bd\"><strike>As many as 70 per cent of married women in India between the age of 15 and 49 are victims of beating<\/font><font style=\"background-color: #ffd2bd\">, rape or coerced sex<\/font>, the United Nation Population Fund report said. However, the rate of domestic violence is much higher in Egypt with 94 per cent and Zambia with 91 per cent. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.expressindia.com\/fullstory.php?newsid=56501\">Link<\/a>]<\/strike><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><strike>I&#8217;m finding that set of numbers a bit hard to believe, in part because Egypt comes close to being a country where all women are assaulted. <\/p>\n\n<p><\/strike><\/p>\n\n<p>&lt;<\/p>\n\n<p>p>[The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/004269.html#comment124279\">comments below<\/a> convincingly argue that the numbers struck out actually referred to women&#8217;s opinions concerning when it was OK for their husband to use force against them and not to actual rates of male against female DV]<\/p>\n\n<p>&lt;<\/p>\n\n<p>p>Lastly, here is a link to some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wecanendvaw.org\/press-domesticviolence.htm\">different numbers for the region<\/a>, again comparability is unclear but it suggests that violence against women is higher in the region than in the world as a whole.<\/p>\n\n<p>&lt;<\/p>\n\n<p>p><strong>UPDATE:<\/strong> here are some figures for abuse of children &#8211; will try to post more when the report comes out:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>Every second child in India has suffered some form of abuse, according to the world&#8217;s largest-ever study on child abuse&#8230; <font style=\"background-color: #ffd2bd\">At least 25 per cent respondents had been sexually abused<\/font> &#8212; 30 per cent of them by family members or relatives, says the National Study on Child Abuse. <font style=\"background-color: #ffd2bd\">Forty per cent of children interviewed said they were subjected to physical violence<\/font>, and five per cent of these said they had resorted to substance abuse to cope with being battered regularly. [<a href=\"http:\/\/beta.hindustantimes.com\/storypage\/storypage.aspx?id=98486708-c19a-4fc3-9c79-b135f1c0a1bf&#038;MatchID1=4416&#038;TeamID1=1&#038;TeamID2=13&#038;MatchType1=2&#038;SeriesID1=1104&#038;PrimaryID=4416\">Link<\/a> via UB]<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>See related posts: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/003870.html\">Wifebeating worldwide<\/a>, <a class=l onmousedown=\"return rwt(this,'','','res','1','__6rKZdENbr1lL2Xbzs716Hvowc9k=','&#038;sig2=fjtCQkhWGNLKhDtsIQACOQ')\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&#038;ct=res&#038;cd=1&#038;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sepiamutiny.com%2Fsepia%2Farchives%2F003242.html&#038;ei=_c4zRavaMIOKpAL2wqjmBg&#038;sig=__6rKZdENbr1lL2Xbzs716Hvowc9k=&#038;sig2=fjtCQkhWGNLKhDtsIQACOQ\">National Sexual Assault Awareness Month<\/a>, <a class=l onmousedown=\"return rwt(this,'','','res','1','__dnj-jBuuMdlMis6PCuZegAo9Gyg=','&#038;sig2=ipA5ganuH81DONrsDgu_Ag')\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/003818.html\">Misogyny kills<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/002972.html\">Seeing the in-laws<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the past, discussions of domestic abuse have run aground because of the lack of good information. In general, we end up agreeing on three points: Women are assaulted by their partners in South Asia South Asian women are assaulted &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/22\/wifebeating_in\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}