Study Report - Women Victims of Crimes in Kerala - Kerala Police

socio-demographic characteristics. The results indicate that 54 percent of men reported
not having abused their wives; 17 percent reported physical but not sexual abuse of their
wives; 22 percent reported sexual abuse without physical force; and 7 percent reported
sexual abuse with physical force. Abuse was more common among men who had
extramarital sex. Similarly, men who had STD symptoms were more likely to abuse their
wives. Unplanned pregnancies were significantly more common among wives of abusive
men, especially sexually abusive men who used force. The study concludes that wifeabuse
appears to be fairly common in northern India and that abusive men were more
likely to engage in extramarital sex and have STD symptoms. It also suggests that the
men who have STD symptoms might have acquired them from their extramarital
relationships, and placed their wives at risk of STD acquisition sometimes via sexual
abuse. These abusive sexual behaviours would also result in increasing the number of
unplanned pregnancies.
Sahoo et.al., in the study 'Domestic Violence in India: An Empirical Analysis'
recognises domestic violence as the significant barrier to empowerment of women, with
consequences such as women’s health, their health-seeking behaviour and their adoption
of small family norm. National Family Health Survey II data, 1998-99 which covered
90,303 “ever married women” was used in the analysis. The survey provides information
on fertility, the practice of family planning, infant and child mortality, maternal and child
health and utilization of health services provided to mothers and children. In addition, it
provides indicators of the quality of health and family welfare services, reproductive
health problems, status of women and domestic violence. The survey follows a multistage
sampling design to select the participants for the interview. Background
characteristics such as education, age, marital duration, place of residence, caste, religion,
sex of the head of the household, standard of living, work status of women, exposure to
mass media and the autonomy of women with respect to decision making, freedom of
movement and access to money are linked to domestic violence. An autonomy index is
computed to understand the relationship of women’s autonomy with domestic violence.
Bivariate analysis is used to examine the variation of domestic violence by background
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