Prevalence of domestic violence.

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO; 2002) referred to violence as a "universal scourge that tears at the fabric of communities" (p. 1). Violence against women by intimate partners-often called domestic violence (DV), intimate partner violence, or wife battering-accounts for a major portion of the violence that occurs worldwide. The definition of DV itself has been the focus of debate and scholarship. The American Psychological Association (1996) defines domestic violence as the range of physical, sexual, and emotional maltreatment by one family member against another. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses the term intimate partner violence to refer to physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse and includes both heterosexual and same-sex couples, whether or not they engage in sexual intimacy, and defines battering as repeated abuse (Saltzman, Fanslow, McMahon, & Shelley, 1999).In this chapter, we use the term domestic violence to refer to the violence (physical, verbal, sexual, or stalking) that women-in relationship with a man or a woman-experience from their intimate partners. 1 We begin with 1 Despite its high prevalence, teen dating violence is not addressed in this chapter. This issue warrants a separate discussion because it differs in many important ways from the DV featured in adult relationships.

Racial/Ethnic Variations in Violence Against Women: Urban, Suburban, and Rural Differences

“…These women are often classified as "white," obscuring issues related to ethnicity and immigration status. Related to these problems is that some common types of abuse directed at immigrant and refugee women, such as using immigration status as a method of coercive control, are not measured in mainstream surveys or by widely used violence measures such as Straus, Hamby, BoneyMcCoy & Sugarman's (1996) revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) (Dutton, Orloff & Hass 2000;Perilla et al 2011). Likewise, national studies may mask important local factors determining victimization rates, pointing to the need for community-specific studies.…”

“…The next step is to examine how much of the variation in violence against women among people of different racial/ethnic backgrounds can be explained by socio-demographic, environmental, and other factors (Perilla et al 2011;Tjaden & Thoennes 2000), which is beyond the scope of the research reported here.…”

“…For example, there is now a burgeoning literature on violence against women "at the margins" (Sokoloff 2005), including interdisciplinary analyses of various types of woman abuse in rural parts of North America and in communities of color (e.g., DeKeseredy & Schwartz 2009;Potter 2008;Rennison, DeKeseredy, & Dragiewicz in press a). Still, much of the extant research underrepresents many racial and ethnic minority groups (Perilla, Lippy, Rosales, & Serrata 2011), especially those living in rural areas. Further, it is unclear whether ethnic/racial variations in violence against women in intimate relationships differ across urban, suburban, and rural communities.…”

“…For several reasons, such as socioeconomic status and isolation (Perilla et al 2011), members of some racial/ethnic groups (e.g., African-American, American Indian/Alaska Native and mixed race) experience higher rates of intimate violence against women than do other racial/ethnic groups (Basile & Black 2011;Tjaden & Thoennes 2000). We hypothesize, however, that racial/ethnic minority women living in rural locations may be at even higher risk of being beaten, sexually assaulted, and experiencing other types of "intimate intrusions" (Stanko 1985).…”

Factors Associated with Domestic Violence against Rural Bangladeshi Women

“…On the other hand, domestic violence consists of physical, sexual, psychological and controlling behaviour against an intimate partner (Esquivel-Santoveña, Lambert and Hamel, 2013). Very specifically, domestic violence or violence that takes place at home accounts for a major portion of the violence that occurs worldwide against women (Perillia, Lippy, Rosales, and Serrata, 2011). Specifically, domestic violence which is perpetrated by the husband cuts across socio-economic, religious, and ethnic boarders (Richardson, Coid, Petruckevitch, Chung, Moorey, and Feder, 2002).…”