Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 368, Issue 9543, 7–13 October 2006, Pages 1260-1269
The Lancet

Articles
Prevalence of intimate partner violence: findings from the WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69523-8Get rights and content

Summary

Background

Violence against women is a serious human rights abuse and public health issue. Despite growing evidence of the size of the problem, current evidence comes largely from industrialised settings, and methodological differences limit the extent to which comparisons can be made between studies. We aimed to estimate the extent of physical and sexual intimate partner violence against women in 15 sites in ten countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, and the United Republic of Tanzania.

Methods

Standardised population-based household surveys were done between 2000 and 2003. Women aged 15–49 years were interviewed and those who had ever had a male partner were asked in private about their experiences of physically and sexually violent and emotionally abusive acts.

Findings

24 097 women completed interviews, with around 1500 interviews per site. The reported lifetime prevalence of physical or sexual partner violence, or both, varied from 15% to 71%, with two sites having a prevalence of less than 25%, seven between 25% and 50%, and six between 50% and 75%. Between 4% and 54% of respondents reported physical or sexual partner violence, or both, in the past year. Men who were more controlling were more likely to be violent against their partners. In all but one setting women were at far greater risk of physical or sexual violence by a partner than from violence by other people.

Interpretation

The findings confirm that physical and sexual partner violence against women is widespread. The variation in prevalence within and between settings highlights that this violence in not inevitable, and must be addressed.

Introduction

Violence against women is now widely recognised as a serious human rights abuse, and increasingly as an important public health problem with substantial consequences for women's physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health.1, 2, 3, 4 This recognition was strengthened by agreements at key international conferences during the 1990s, including the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995).5 Its Platform for Action identified the scarcity of adequate information on the prevalence, nature, causes, and consequences of violence worldwide, as a serious obstacle to the wider recognition of the magnitude and seriousness of the issue, and the development of effective intervention strategies.

Since then, international research has provided increasing evidence of the prevalence of violence against women, particularly physical violence perpetrated by intimate male partners. A review of over 50 population-based studies in 35 countries before 1999 indicated that between 10% and 52% of women from around the world report that they had been physically abused by an intimate partner at some point in their lives, and between 10% and 30% that they had experienced sexual violence by an intimate partner.6, 7

However, because of discrepancies in research design and methods, comparison of data was not possible between settings. In response, the WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence against women was developed. This population based study has as its main objectives to estimate the prevalence of different forms of violence against women, with particular emphasis on physical, sexual, and emotional violence by intimate partners; assess the association of partner violence with a range of health outcomes; identify factors that could either protect or put women at risk of partner violence; and document the strategies and services that women use to cope with this violence.

This paper presents findings on the extent of physical and sexual intimate partner violence against women from fifteen diverse sites in ten countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, and the United Republic of Tanzania.8

Section snippets

Methods

The study was an international collaboration between WHO, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), and research teams in each country. These country teams consisted of an established research institution or government agency with experience in doing population surveys, and an organisation experienced in providing services to abused women.9 To support the implementation and dissemination of the study, countries also

Results

In general, the study achieved a high response rate in every setting (table 2). Across the 15 different sites in ten countries, 24 097 women completed interviews about their experiences of violence, with between 1172 and 1837 interviews per site, except for Ethiopia province, where 3016 women completed the interview. In 12 of the 13 sites that sampled households, between 91·3% and 99·6% of inhabited households completed the initial household interview. The only outlier was Serbia and Montenegro

Discussion

Across the study sites in the WHO study, between 15% and 71% of ever-partnered women reported physical or sexual violence, or both, by an intimate partner at some point in their lives. Most sites reported prevalence rates between 30% and 60%. Between 4% and 54% of women reported physical or sexual violence, or both, by a partner within the 12 months before the study, with most estimates falling between 15% and 30%. With the exception of Samoa, these rates represent site-specific estimates, and

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