**1. Introduction**

Violence against women by intimate male partners is a common practice and an accepted reality throughout the world. It is perhaps the most widespread form of gender based violence denying women's basic human rights, dignity, security and self-esteem [1]. Intimate partner violence (IPV), often referred to as domestic violence, encompasses physical and sexual assaults, stalking and psychological abuse by a current or former intimate partner. IPV also includes threats of harm, coercive tactics or arbitrary deprivation of liberty that may occur in public or in private life [2–4]. IPV may occur in the same-sex relationship, can be perpetrated by women, but most frequently, women are abused by their partners [3]. In 2017 around 87,000 women were murdered and 58 per cent of them were killed by intimate partners or

other family members [5]. According to a report of the World Health Organisation [6], globally almost 30 per cent of women experience physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner at any time in their life.

The prevalence rate of IPV in India is more or less similar to the global average. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, in 2019, more than 400,000 cases of crime against women were registered under Indian Penal Code and the highest number of cases was recorded under 'cruelty by husband or his relatives' (31 per cent) [7]. The fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) revealed that in India, among ever-married women aged 15–49, 30 per cent experienced physical violence, 7 per cent experienced sexual violence and 14 per cent experienced emotional violence by the current or the most recent husband. In fact, the women (aged 15–49) who experienced any physical or sexual violence since the age of 15 years reported that 80 percent of physical violence and 86 per cent of sexual violence were perpetrated by their spouse [8]. In the last three decades ample evidences have been collected on the magnitude of intimate partner violence throughout the world [1, 4, 6, 9–23]. In India, apart from the National Family Health Survey, several population-based surveys also provided the information on domestic violence. According to those surveys, the prevalence rate of physical violence in India varies across regions and socio-economic strata and ranged between 9 percent and 99 percent [24–32]. Koenig et al. [24] noted that in Uttar Pradesh, 34 percent of men committed physical violence and 31 per cent of men committed sexual violence against their wives. According to another study, in five districts of Uttar Pradesh, 18 to 45 per cent of men abused their wives physically and 18 to 40 per cent reported that they forced their wives to have sex [25]. Jejeebhoy found that 40 to 46 percent of women were beaten up by their husbands in Uttar Pradesh [26]. The prevalence of physical violence was found around 43 percent in Maharashtra and 42 percent in rural Gujarat [27, 28]. In Goa, 9.43 percent of married women aged 18–50 years reported lifetime physical violence while only 3.66 percent reported lifetime sexual violence [29]. In Tamil Nadu, the proportion of women who ever suffered beating by their husbands ranged from 33 percent to 35 percent [26]. Solomon et al. noted that among low income communities in Chennai, the lifetime prevalence of physical abuse and forced sex in domestic sphere was unusually high being 99 per cent and 75 per cent respectively [30]. A cross-sectional study conducted in slum areas of Kolkata found that around 17 per cent of women experienced spousal physical violence in one year preceding the survey [31]. A recent study at Mumbai slums revealed that among ever-married women aged 18–49 years, 13 per cent experienced physical or sexual abuse by their intimate partners [32].

What is the root causes behind the worldwide violence against women in general and IPV by men in particular? Violence against women or gender based violence is a social mechanism applied to subjugate women [2]. IPV is the manifestation of prevailing patriarchal values in the society [33]. Patriarchy is an ideological construct which considers men as superior to women at all levels be it economic, social, cultural or political [34]. Patriarchal system establishes a series of norms and constraints regarding gender roles for both men and women and socialises men and women to follow them [35]. As a result with a patriarchal mindset, men think that they have right to control women if they fail to execute their duties [28]. Thus, domestic violence arises from patriarchal notions of ownership over women's bodies, sexuality, labour, reproductive rights, mobility and level of autonomy [36]. However, intimate partner violence occurs due to the interplay of several factors at several levels. Heise [37] proposed an ecological model of factors associated with IPV at four levels. The first level represents the biological or personal factors that increase the likelihood of becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence, like age, level of education, a history of witnessing violent behaviour etc. The second level

#### *Sexual Violence and Women Empowerment in India: Findings from a Nationally Representative… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97456*

identifies relationship factors, e.g., marital discord and male control over decision making in the family. The third level encompasses the community level factors such as poverty, socioeconomic status, isolation of women from the natal family etc. The fourth level is associated with the broad societal factors and cultural norms like rigid gender roles or norms granting male control over female behaviour.

To end the violence against women we need to change the patriarchal mindset of people that view unequal power relations as natural. It is not easy. According to Heise et al., the first step for change is empowering women which can be achieved through increased access to education, economic resources, health information and increased participation in decision making by women and girls [3]. Ruth Dixon-Mueller defined women empowerment as "the capacity of individual women or of women as a group to resist the arbitrary imposition of controls on their behaviour or the denial of their rights, to challenge the power of others if it is deemed illegitimate, and to resolve a situation in their favour" [38]. Kabeer viewed empowerment as the processes by which one could gain the ability to make strategic life choices [39]. One essential feature of female empowerment is 'agency', i.e., women themselves must be significant actors in the process of change [40].

From the above discussion it can be said that women empowerment and intimate partner violence are negatively related. In other words, in a society where women empowerment is higher, the prevalence of domestic violence will be lower. In this paper we have analysed this relationship in the context of India where domestic violence is high and connected to the large number of dowry related deaths each year. Although the reported rate of sexual violence by intimate partners in India is much lower than physical violence but the impact of sexual violence, particularly of coercive sexual intercourse on women is immense as it leads to physical injuries, reproductive health problems and long term mental trauma [41]. Physical violence and sexual coercion compromise women's reproductive autonomy which in turn increases women's risk of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS [1]. Sexual assault also increases women's risk of gynaecological problems, depression and suicide [42]. It has been observed that compared to women who only reported physical assault, women who faced coercive sexual intercourse have a lower self-esteem, more negative self-image and are more fearful of sexuality [43, 44]. Besides, since the International Conference on Population and Development (IPCD) held in Cairo (1994) [45], demands for the sexual and reproductive rights irrespective of gender have gained momentum [45]. In this context, we are interested to examine the association between women's experience of spousal sexual violence and women empowerment in India using a nationally representative sample survey. In this study we have selected a number of proxy variables commonly used to measure women empowerment and tried to fit them in the ecological framework of Heise [37]. Previous studies from India that have analysed the determinants of domestic violence did not use the ecological model of Heise to explain the factors associated with women's experience of spousal sexual violence.

## **2. Data and method**

For our analysis we have used the data from the Women's file of the fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 2015–2016. It is a nationally representative sample survey which collected data from all the 29 states and 7 union territories of India. We have used the information on background characteristics of the respondents, reproduction, marriage, women's work, husband's background, women's empowerment, other health issues and domestic violence for our study. NFHS-4 provides information

of total 699,686 women aged 15–49. However, for domestic violence module 83,397 women were chosen and 79,729 women completed the interview.

Whether a woman has faced spousal sexual violence has been determined by asking them the following questions: Does (did) your current (last) husband ever do any of the following things to you: Physically force you to have sexual intercourse with him even when you did not want to? (i) (ii) Physically force you to perform any other sexual acts you did not want to? (iii) Force you with threats or in any other way to perform sexual acts you did not want to? Women could answer 'yes' or 'no' to each item; If a woman said 'yes' to one or more of these items, she was considered to have experienced spousal sexual violence. In the women's file of NFHS-4, variable D108 provides information on women's experience of sexual violence ever by husband or partner. As only 0.6 per cent never married women experience sexual violence [8] and many of the empowerment related questions were asked only to the ever-married women, we have restricted our analysis to the ever-married women only.

We have used several background variables that help to understand women's empowerment. These are husband's control on selected issues, women's decision making power and level of education, current work status of women and whether women have bank accounts and mobile phones. In the domestic violence module, respondents were asked if they faced six situations in their marital relationship. These are: (i) He (is/was) jealous or angry if you (talk/talked) to other men; (ii) He frequently (accuses/accused) you of being unfaithful; (iii) He (does/did) not permit you to meet your female friends; (iv) He (tries/tried) to limit your contact with your family; (v) He (insists/insisted) on knowing where you (are/were) at all times; (vi) He (does/did) not trust you with any money. The answers are grouped as 'no' and otherwise (yes or do not know). If the answer is 'no' in all six situations, then it is designated as 'no control'. If the answers are 'otherwise' for 1–2 cases, then it is 'less control' and if the answers are 'otherwise' for 3–6 cases, then it is designated as high marital control over women by their husbands. During the NFHS-4 survey, women were asked if they justify wife beating in the 5 given situations: (i) if wife goes out without telling husband; (ii) if wife neglects the children: (iii) if wife argues with husband; (iv) if wife refuses to have sex with husband; and (v) if wife does not cook food properly. If a woman supports wife beating in any of the given situations, then we conclude that wife beating is justified by that woman.

Cross tabulation and Pearson's Chi square test have been used to examine the bivariate relationship between marital sexual violence and background characteristics of women. Multivariate analysis has been applied to find out the net impact of the variables related to women empowerment on sexual abuse experienced by women. All analyses are done using SPSS version 21.0.

#### **3. Findings**

#### **3.1 Background characteristics of women included in the analysis**

**Table 1** shows the distribution of women selected for our analysis by background characteristics. The selection of background characteristics were based on extensive literature review [3, 4, 11, 14, 17, 19, 24–26, 29, 31–33, 43, 46–53]. In our study 6.7 women (4372 of total 66,013 samples) had experienced sexual violence by their current/last husbands. Among the respondents, 17.3 percent were below 25 years of age and 45.1 per cent were in the age group 35–49 years. More than two third women reported to have 2 or more living children. Less than one-fifth women completed secondary education. Majority of the women were Hindu and

*Sexual Violence and Women Empowerment in India: Findings from a Nationally Representative… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97456*


*2015–2016.*

#### **Table 1**

*Background characteristics of ever-married women and their husbands included in the analysis*

*Sexual Violence and Women Empowerment in India: Findings from a Nationally Representative… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97456*

belonged to non-Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe category (The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are officially designated groups of depressed classes in Indian society). More than one third women witnessed beating of their mother by their father. Twenty two per cent women confessed that they were afraid of their husbands and more than one fourth of the respondents experienced physical violence by their husbands. Around half of the women said that they did not face any marital by their husbands on selected issues but 17.5 percent women reported high control. Almost two third women reported that they used to take the following decisions jointly with their husbands: about their own health care, about major household purchase, about visits to their family/relatives and about the use of husband's earning. 57 per cent of women did not support wife beating. Thirty per cent of women reported that their husbands consumed alcohol. At the time of the interview, three fourth of the women said that they were not working and 4.3 per cent women reported that their husbands were not working. Almost half of the women did not possess any mobile phone and 46 per cent of women did not have bank account. As per wealth quintile, more or less 20 per cent women belonged to each quintile. According to NFHS-4, India has been divided into six regions [8]. The highest number of respondents were from Central India (23.4 per cent) followed by North (21.3 per cent), East (17.3), South (14.9 per cent), North-East (12.7 per cent) and Western India (10.3 per cent).

#### **3.2 Results from bivariate analysis**

In this section we have presented the results of bivariate analysis. Also, the variables have been categorised at four levels according to the general ecological model of IPV described by Heise [37]. It is evident from **Table 2** that women's experience of spousal sexual violence did not vary much with age. Those who had three or more children have experienced higher rate of sexual violence. Those who completed secondary education, 3.8 per cent of them experienced sexual abuse by their husbands. On the other hand those who did not complete secondary education, 7.4 percent of them complained about spousal sexual violence. Muslim, non-SC/ST women reported lower rate of sexual violence. The percentage of women who experienced sexual violence was 2.6 times higher among those who witnessed intergenerational violence than who did not. Working women complained about higher sexual abuse by husbands than non-working women. The highest rate of sexual violence was reported by the women whose husbands were not working. The percentage of women experiencing spousal sexual violence was more than three times higher for those who reported consumption of alcohol by their partners. The percentage of women who experienced spousal sexual violence was lower among those who had bank account and mobile phone.

**Table 3** presents the bivariate association between women's experience of spousal sexual violence and other covariates indicating relational aspects between husband and wife. The percentage of women who experienced sexual violence was 2.7 times higher among those who were afraid of their husbands. The percentage of women who faced sexual violence was almost 12 times higher among those who ever experienced spousal physical violence compared to the women who did not. Women who reported higher marital control on specific issues, 19 percent of them complained about sexual violence by their husbands whereas those who did not face any control on those issues, only 2.1 per cent of them reported spousal sexual violence. The percentage of women facing sexual abuse was lower for those who said they jointly took decisions with husbands about their own heath care, household purchase, visit to family/relatives and the use of husband's earning.


*Sexual Violence and Women Empowerment in India: Findings from a Nationally Representative… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97456*


#### **Table 2**

*2015–2016.*

*Percentage of ever-married women age 15–49 who reported sexual violence (by current or the last husband) by biological or personal background characteristics with Pearson's chi-square results, India, 2015–2016*


