Over 37 pc Indian women suffer spousal violence

New Delhi, Mar 3: Despite passage of a legislation to providesuccour to women affected with domestic violence, over 37 per centmarried women suffer from this social menace.

This was significant in view of the women groups complaining thatthere has not been any significant increase in the budget to provideassistance to these women through establishing more 'short stay homes'and training of protection officers.

According to the Family Health Survey Report III, women in ruralareas faced more violence at 40.2 per cent than those in urban areas.

Bihar which is lagging behind in both education and healthindicators, especially among women, has the maximum number of womenfacing physical and sexual abuse from their husbands. Though in otherstates rural women faced more physical and sexual abuse, in case ofBihar urban women were the worst sufferers with about 62.2 per cent ofthem facing domestic violence as compared to 58.5% in rural areas.

The incidence of domestic violence among women of Rajasthan wasalso rampant with about 46.3 per cent of them suffering it followed byMadhya Pradesh 45.8 per cent Tripura 44.15 per cent Manipur 43.9 percent Uttar Pradesh 42.4 per cent Tamil Nadu 41.9 per cent West Bengal40.3 per cent and Arunachal Pradesh 38.8 per cent.

The better empowerment of women of Himachal Pradesh was evidentfrom the fact that they suffered lesser violence at homes as comparedto their counterparts from other states.

Though Tamil Nadu has better record as far as education of womenwas concerned, Chennai recored the maximum 40.6 per cent womencomplaining of domestic violence followed by Kolkatta 26.7 per cent andMumbai 19.5 per cent. Delhi recorded the least incidents of domesticviolence with only 16.3 per cent women facing it.

Spousal violence has been found to be lesser among educated womenhowever, even among them about 16 per cent suffered from violence, theSurvey pointed out.

Interestingly, the last National Family Health Survey had shownthat many a times women feel that their husbands were entitled tophysically abuse them in case food was not cooked on time and othersuch incidents. However, with spreading education the mindset andattitude of women towards domestic violence is changing.

The attitude of civil society, which earlier used to advocatewomen to compromise with their husbands even after being thrashed, isalso changing. The government has also enacted the Domestic ViolenceBill to provide protection to women facing violence at homes andprovide them legal right to stay in their matrimonial homes.

UNI >