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Family Violence
04
Consequences of husband perpetuated violence against women on child health and psycho-social state
Free
  1. Anwar Kazi Selim, *1,*,
  2. Yasmin Ahad2⇓,
  3. Begum Ayesha3,
  4. Gani Nurul4,
  5. Monwar S Reaz5,
  6. Rahman Mahfuzur M Shah6,
  7. Islam Khaleda7,
  8. Karim S Afzalul8,
  9. Sengupta Pradip Kumar9,
  10. Molla Azaher Ali10
  1. 1Development Organization of Socio-economic, Health and Environmental Research (DOSHER), 701, Tongi Diversion Road, Moghbazar (Shifted at Punak Complex, 2nd Floor, 99/2, Moghbazar, Dhaka 1217, Bangladesh
  2. 2Bengali Language, The British School, Dhaka
  3. 3Faculty of Food Sc & Tech, Chittagong Vet & Animal Sc Univ
  4. 4Inst. Pub Health & EC-member, DOSHER
  5. 5Child Right Div, ORNOB
  6. 6FS, Inst. Public Health
  7. 7Inst. of Nutr & Food Sc, Dhaka Univ
  8. 8Dermatology, Holy Family Med College Hosp & Finance Dir, DOSHER
  9. 9IMPACT Foundation Bangladesh
  10. 10Dept. Heath Economics, Dhaka Univ & EC-Member, DOSHER. Dhaka, Bangladesh
  11. (1*Recently joined as Coordinator, QI Program at the CIPRB, H#B-162, Lane 23, New DOHS, Mohakhali, Dhaka 1206, Bangladesh)

    Abstract

    Background The UN-Resolution defines violence against women-VAW as any-act of gender-based violence resulting in physical/sexual/psychological-harm/threat to women, coercion or arbitrary-deprivation of liberty, in her life. Despite several national/global initiatives (Nairobi-Strategy‘85,Beijing-Platform'95),promoting/enforcing women's-rights remains slower. In Asia, prevalence/magnitude of VAW is being-rampant. Here, we present preliminary-findings on family-violence (FV) from Bangladesh and its' negative-impact on child's health and psycho-social state.

    Purpose Study occurrences of husband-perpetuated FV and assess its effect on child's health and psycho-social state (school-performances).

    Methods This cross-sectional survey was conducted among 72 married-women living-in 64 households in randomly-selected three rural-villages. Adopting a 2-tier-methodology we interviewed all women using a pre-tested structured-questionnaire, and assessed their perception on-VAW, qualitatively (using FGDs, In-depth-Interview/IDIs).

    Outcome Of 72 women, 94% were less/ill-literate, 53% poor, majority being 1st wives. Of 68% (n=49) with some-degree of family-violence, 45% tolerated mild-form(mostly verbal and rarely physical abusing/slapping), 37% endured moderate-form (verbal/physical-abusing 3–4 times/year) and 18% sustained severe-form(physical torturing every1–2 weeks-apart) of VAW. While verbal-abusing was confined in rebuking/reprimand; physical-abuse ranged from scolding to battering: fist-hitting/hand-twisting, beating, punching, kicking/knocking. Few severe-cases sustained throat-grabbing/knife-charging/burnt-off body-parts/forced-sex and suicidal attempts. Attesting these findings, post-FGD/IDI-transcript analysis revealed dowry-demand, gross-poverty and/or husband-dependency was prime-causes of FV. But, FV-victims never raised voice to avoid social-chaos/gossip and/or pro-male(husband)-biased unfair-judgment(s). Severity of FV-cases was associated with child's health(pre-set-parameters), (p<0.04) and school-performance(p<0.03) including other psycho-social-state.

    Significance/Contribution Occurrence of FV in rural-Bangladesh (breeching women-right) and exerting negative-impact on child's health/psycho-social state(violating child-right) remains imperative for immediate intervention towards stopping male-driven socio-cultural-epidemics right now if not possible to combat it instantly.

    https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2012-040590q.4

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