Domestic Violence Against married women in Lekhnath Municipality of Kaski District

Abstract

This thesis has focused on the domestic violence against married women of LekhnathMunicipality of Kaski district. This study exposes the general condition of Nepaliwomen and their experience on different types of domestic violence. The prominentfocus ofthis study is to find out the socio-economic conditions of married women andto identify the consequences of DVAW. This study is based on both primary and secondary sources of information. Thesample of 90 married Kumal women has been taken from 120 households of Kumal toidentify the causes and consequences of domestic violence against married women.Primary data has been collected through intensively interview method with structuredquestionnaire developed. Observation, key informants interview and case studymethods were also used to explore and triangulate the field information. Similarlysecondary data has been collected through web-sites, books, NGO, INGO’s report andjournals. The study found that main causes of domestic violence were traditional norms andvalues towards married women, lack of education to women and household head,early marriage, poverty, mobility of women without consent of family, ownership onthe property, nature and type of marriage and family.The research findings alsoclearly indicate that alcohol intake was major cause of violence against marriedwomen. It was found that 75.6 percent of respondents suffered from domestic violence whichis very high. A look at the age factor of the victims indicates that majority (20.6%) ofthem were between the age of 30 to 34 years and 17.7% of between the ages of 25 to29 years which means the rate of violence is high in active reproductive age. Theresult of this study also reveals that domestic violence was huge among those womenwhose education level is below class ten. Analyzing on the basis of type of marriageof the respondents it was found that 64.5% victims were from arranged marriagegroup where as 35.5% from love marriage. Similarly the percentage of victims was60% and 40% from joint and nuclear family respectively. This research also indicatesthat husbands have engaged in domestic violence with their wife which was 58.8%. It is seen that mother in laws and father in laws had also committed domestic violencein large number of household with daughter in laws which is 16.2 and 14.7%respectively. Overall, economic, social/family and educational factors were the majorcontributing factors for domestic violence against married women. From the research, it was found that among different types of domestic violence;almost all (97.1%) women have suffered from verbal violence, 89.7% were victims ofpsychological violence, 51.5% women faced physical violence and 30.9%sufferedfrom sexual violence. The study findings further pointed out that, out of 90 respondents 61 respondents haddifferent types of psychological problem due to domestic violence. Among them,majority (42.6%) had tension, 24.6% women were suffered from constant fear,depression was also seen in 16.4 percent women, 9.8% wanted to leave their husbandhome and 6.6% women had suicidal feelings. This study also revealed that physicalproblem of women due to domestic violence ranged from mild to severe formwhere45.7% were suffered from sprain and 14.3% had head area injuries. This study alsoshowed that consequence of sexual violence on women where 14.3% women weresuffered from marital rape, 42.8% suffered from unacceptable sex acts, 28.6% fromforceful sex and 14.3% were victims of vulgar sex. After being the victim of differenttype of domestic violence, most of the women even didn’t seek support from differentmeans. The research had found the reason behind this problem which was: 25%victims had hesitation to report, 22.1% victims were afraid of re-victimization, 8.8%felt lengthy process of formal justice authorities, 17.6% of victims were because ofbribing formal authorities and majority of victims i.e. 26.5% didn’t report toconcerned authorities because of public shame of family honour. Based on the studyfindings, it is recommended that prevention and early detection of domestic violencecan reduce many morbidity and mortality of women.