The risk factor of domestic violence in India

It is over the last decade that research in this field of domestic violence has led to greater recognition of the issue as public health problem. The paper aims to study the prevalence of physical, psychological, and sexual violence and potential risk factors of the women confronting violence within the home in India.

A multicentric study with analytical cross-sectional design was applied. It covers 18 states in India with 14,507 women respondents. Multistage sampling and probability proportion to size were done.

The result shows that overall 39 per cent of women were abused. Women who have a lower household income, illiterate, belonging to lower caste, and have a partner who drinks/bets, etc. found to be important risk factors and place women in India at a greater risk of experiencing domestic violence.

As India has already passed a bill against domestic violence, the present results on robustness of the problem will be useful to sensitize the concerned agencies to strictly implement the law. This may lead to more constructive and sustainable response to domestic violence in India for improvement of women health and wellbeing.