Study on intimate partner violence against rural tribal women of reproductive age group in siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling District, West Bengal.

BACKGROUND

Since the early 1990s, several milestone international declarations have recognized violence against women as a violation of human rights. Intimate partner violence (IPV), often used synonymously with domestic abuse or domestic violence against women, is a big burden to our society which manifests itself in many forms and it has its existence in every corner of the world irrespective of all the boundaries.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of this study was to find out the prevalence of IPV against reproductive age group tribal women in Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling district.

METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was carried out among 360 tribal women aged between 15 and 49 years residing at selected villages across Siliguri subdivision. Data regarding IPV were collected using the Indian Family Violence and Control Scale questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 20 and multi-variable logistic regression was done to find out factors associated with domestic violence.

RESULTS

The study revealed that 70.3% of women had experienced domestic violence in any form in their lifetime. Logistic regression revealed that IPV was significantly associated with: age between 30 and 49 years, education above primary school, unskilled occupation, ₹ 2500 and above per-capita monthly income, and participants who are separated/broken up. Among the factors related to the male partner, literacy above primary school level was associated with experience to domestic violence.

CONCLUSION

Domestic violence in all its manifestations was found to be present in the study population. The report may offer policymakers fresh perspectives on how to allocate funds for the complete elimination of domestic violence against women.