International Domestic Violence Study Released

Partner violence is the most common form of violence in women’s lives, and domestic violence affects women across the globe, a landmark report released last week by the World Health Organisation concludes.

The Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence report draws on population-based surveys undertaken in 10 countries, including both industrialised and developing nations. The report maintains that women who are victims of violence from their partner are twice as likely to suffer ill health as those that have not experienced partner abuse. Furthermore, women are shown to be affected by poor mental and physical health long after the violence stops.

The multi-country WHO study collected data from 24,000 women in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand and the United republic of Tanzania between 2000 and 2003.

In New Zealand, a replication of the WHO study – funded by the Health Research Council - was recently carried out by a team from the School of Population Health at The University of Auckland, and the first results were published late 2004.

Data from the New Zealand research shows that New Zealand women experience higher lifetime rates of partner violence than women in Japan, Brazil and Serbia.

Principal investigator Dr Janet Fanslow said while developing countries who participated in the WHO survey reported even higher rates of lifetime experience of violence by intimate partners (e.g., Peru, Ethiopia, Bangladesh), New Zealand’s rates indicate that one out of three women have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence by a partner.

“Six percent of New Zealand women reported experiencing physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner within the 12 months prior to the survey.

“While this is relatively low in terms of figures reported in other countries (range: 4% reported by women in Japan and Serbia to 54% reported by women in Ethiopia), it still indicates that approximately one in 20 New Zealand women have experienced this type of violence recently.

“Given the high correlation between experience of intimate partner violence and current and long-term health problems, as well as detrimental effects to children, these statistics suggest that urgent action is needed to address the issue, particularly in terms of primary prevention.

“Reasons for the variation in rates between countries have yet to be determined. A possible explanation for the relatively low rate of violence in New Zealand within the past 12 months is the social circumstances here that make it relatively easy on the international scale, to leave violent relationships,” said Dr Fanslow.

The New Zealand study used questions comparable to those in the WHO study, to assess women’s experiences of physical and sexual violence by current or former male partners. However, the age range assessed by the New Zealand study (18-49 years) was slightly different to that used by the other countries in the WHO Multi-Country study (15- 49 years).

The WHO report is available to download from http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/index.html

For a fact sheet on the NZ study go to:
http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/fact_sheets/en...