Citation

Lane T. Int. Fam. Plan. Perspect. 2003; 29(3): online.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Alan Guttmacher Institute)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In rural Bangladesh, a married woman's risk of experiencing domestic violence is associated with her individual autonomy, as well as the autonomy of women within her community.1 In the more culturally conservative of two study areas, women who had been a member of a credit group for less than two years were more likely than nonmembers to report current physical abuse (odds ratio, 1.3), and the greater a woman's autonomy, the higher her odds of being abused (1.6). However, in the less culturally conservative area, the proportion of women in a community participating in a credit group and female autonomy at the community level were linked to a reduced risk of domestic violence.

Using data from a 1993 family planning survey of 10,368 currently married women aged 15-49 living in Sirajgonj and Jessore, researchers examined the relationship between women's status and current domestic violence-defined as beating by their husband or his family. Indicators of women's status at the individual level were membership in a savings and credit group and an autonomy score based on women's responses to five questions about their mobility, familial decision-making power and control of resources. Community-level indicators included the proportion of women in the community who belonged to a credit group and the mean female autonomy score. Multivariate logistic regression analyses controlled for the study area; number of living sons; woman's age, religion and education; husband's education; land ownership; family structure; and community level of female education.

Of the women surveyed, 42% reported current physical abuse-47% in Sirajgonj and 39% injessore. The proportion of women who had been abused exceeded 50% in about one-half of the communities in Sirajgonj, compared with only one-fifth of communities injessore. Nine in 10 women who had experienced physical violence said that attacks were occasional, whereas one in 10 said they were frequent.