Profiling domestic violence: a multi-country study.

This study uses household and individual-level data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) program to examine the prevalence and correlates of domestic violence and the health consequences of domestic violence for women and their children. Nationally representative data from nine countries—Cambodia (2000) Colombia (2000) the Dominican Republic (2002) Egypt (1995) Haiti (2000) India (1998- 1999) Nicaragua (1998) Peru (2000) and Zambia (2001-2002)—are analyzed within a comparative framework to provide a multifaceted analysis of the phenomenon of domestic violence. Scientific investigation of the problem of domestic violence is a relatively recent endeavor. It is only within the past 30 years that violence against women has been acknowledged internationally as a threat to the health and rights of women as well as to national development. With the recognition of violence against women as a global problem came the need for the development of methodologies to collect data on violence ethically and in a manner that maximizes the validity and reliability of the data. To this end the DHS program began to collect information on the prevalence of domestic violence against women within the context of the household in the early 1990s. However it was not until the late 1990s that the DHS program developed a standard module of questions in consultation with experts on domestic violence measurement gender and survey research. The module and its implementation conform to the recommendations of the World Health Organization for ethical collection of data on domestic violence. (excerpt)