Demographic and Health Survey 2009-10 - Timor-Leste Ministry of ...

240 | Domestic Violence
By residence, urban women are more likely to experience violence than rural women. Women
in Manufahi (78 percent), Lautem (61 percent), Oecussi (55 percent), and Dili (48 percent) are more
likely to have ever experienced emotional, physical, or sexual violence than their counterparts in other
districts. There is no distinct pattern between women experiencing violence committed by their
husband by education. Women in the highest wealth quintile are slightly more likely to experience the
three types of violence. Women with a history of family violence—whose father beat their mother —
are more than twice as likely to experience all three types of violence from a husband or partner than
women whose fathers or mothers were not abusive. This indicates that violence is accepted as a
normal part of life.
16.10 VIOLENCE BY SPOUSAL CHARACTERISTICS AND EMPOWERMENT INDICATORS
The perpetrators of spousal violence are usually husbands or partners, and it is therefore
important to understand their characteristics. It is also useful to examine whether spousal violence
varies with indicators of women’s status. Table 16.10 shows the percentage of ever-married women
who have ever experienced different forms of spousal violence by their current or most recent
husband, by spousal characteristics and women’s empowerment indicators.
Husbands who have primary education are more likely to exhibit violent behavior against
their wives/partners while those with no education and those with higher education are less likely to
be violent.
The husband’s alcohol consumption is strongly related to the wife’s reporting of violence. For
example, the proportion of ever-married women who report having experienced emotional, physical,
or sexual violence from their husbands varies from 26 percent among those whose husbands do not
drink at all to 60 percent among those whose husbands get drunk very often.
Women who are of the same age as their husband are more likely to experience emotional,
physical, or sexual violence. Women in marriages in which neither spouse is educated are less likely
to report experiencing violence from their husbands than those where both have equal levels of
education (31 percent and 40 percent, respectively).
Results show that there is a strong relationship between women’s empowerment status and
their experience of spousal violence. Women whose husbands display five to six controlling behaviors
are more likely to report experiencing emotional, physical, or sexual violence by their husbands than
women whose husbands display no controlling behaviors (58 and 29 percent, respectively).
Women who participate in three or four household decisions are less likely to experience
spousal violence than women who participate in fewer decisions. Women with one or two reasons
justifying the refusal to have sexual intercourse with their husbands are more likely to experience all
three types of violence from their husbands than those with no reasons. Views about wife beating also
appear to be related to actual experience of physical abuse. Women who believe that wife beating is
justified for any of the five specified circumstances are more likely to report having experienced
emotional, physical, or sexual violence from their husbands than women who do not think wife
beating is justified for any reason (36 and 19 percent, respectively). To some extent, this pattern could
be due to women’s rationalization of the abuse they have experienced.