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Domestic Violence And Sexual Reproductive Health of Women |
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| Paper Id :
18847 Submission Date :
13/04/2024 Acceptance Date :
21/04/2024 Publication Date :
25/04/2024
This is an open-access research paper/article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.11083784 For verification of this paper, please visit on
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| Abstract |
This research investigates the relationship between domestic
abuse and women's sexual and reproductive health across their lifetime.
Existing research indicates a strong link between domestic violence and the
poor health and well-being of not just the women themselves, but also the
children they have and are expected by social conventions to care for. Indeed,
violence against women has serious demographic effects, such as lower
educational achievement and earning potential for younger generations. Around
730 million women worldwide report having ever been the victim of gender-based
violence; those who live in low and lower-middle income nations are
disproportionately afflicted. Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)
are now widely acknowledged as human rights worldwide. However, this transition
occurred as part of broader social and political upheavals. Following the
publishing of the 1975 statement, academics identified four distinct stages in
the adoption of SRHR as human rights. Due to increased stress from loss of
livelihood, disruption of social and protective networks, and restricted
movement, the COVID19 epidemic has only made violence against women by intimate
partners more common in the last two years. The health of women and the
children they give birth to and raise is immediately impacted by violence. This
study investigates the causal association between domestic violence and women's
sexual and reproductive health. Reproductive rights encompass the legal right
to contraception, abortion, fertility treatment, reproductive health, and access
to information about one's reproductive organs. Reproductive rights ensure that
people have the choice to choose whether or not to reproduce. Reproductive
geographies, which depart from a feminist understanding of the reproductive
body as the most intimate location for/of political struggle, are a relatively
recent field within human geography. Reproduction used to be a common issue in
quantitative population geography. More modern spatial work on reproduction, on
the other hand, draws on feminist, Black, postcolonial, and critical theories
to confront the unequal geographies of access to reproductive health and
justice spaces. Reproductive geography research is increasingly using an
intersectional lens to investigate how reproductive rights. |
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| Keywords | Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, Rural Area, Women’s Educational Level, Women’s Status. | ||||||
| Introduction | It is acknowledged that violence against women is a global public health and human rights issue that requires immediate response. It has an impact on women's human rights as well as their sexual and reproductive health. Even though there has been improvement over the past 15 years, much work remains. Governments and non-governmental organizations may guarantee women a life free from violence and its aftereffects by utilizing the tools provided by international human rights legislation and public health. Health clinicians must intervene, and health policy and services must address violence in a more methodical manner. They should, at the very least, be knowledgeable of violence and capable of reacting to it effectively, offering care and making referrals to other resources. Supporting interventions is just as crucial, if not more so. Domestic abuse is recognized worldwide as a social health issue that disproportionately affects women. It is divided into five categories: physical, sexual, verbal, economic, and emotional violence. Domestic violence against women also includes coercive sterilization and abortion, forcing women to use contraception against their will or withholding contraception from those who want to use it, genital mutilation, killing female offspring, and gender selection during pregnancy. A woman afflicted with a sexually transmitted disease by her partner or husband, as well as having a partner or husband have sexual intercourse with another woman, are both examples of sexual violence. Domestic abuse has major consequences on women's general and reproductive health, and it can lead to serious issues. Violations of women's sexual and reproductive health and rights are frequently the result of deeply held ideas and social ideals about women's sexuality. Women's duties within the family are generally valued primarily on their ability to reproduce, thanks to patriarchal ideas of gender. Early marriage and pregnancy, or repeated pregnancies spaced too close together—often as a result of efforts to create male kids due to a desire for sons—have a catastrophic influence on women's health, with potentially fatal implications. Women are frequently blamed for infertility, which leads to ostracism and a variety of human rights violations. Women's sexual and reproductive health is a complex subject. Its background is quite long. Women's rights have been continuously progressing since the early 1900s. The battle over sexual health and reproductive health began on a high scale in the 1900s. When the Margaret Sanger raised her voice about this, she started making other women aware about sex and reproductive health and told women about their various rights and started giving sex education. UN has also made provisions regarding this in some of its conventions like Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Women's sexual and reproductive health is linked to a variety of human rights, including the right to life, the right to be free of torture, the right to health, the right to privacy, the right to an education, and the prohibition on discrimination. The Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) have both stated unequivocally that women's rights to health encompass sexual and reproductive health. After this, a meeting was held in Cairo in 1994 and a revolutionary program regarding women's rights was started, which was named International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). ICPD started making women aware about sexual and reproductive health and started various types of programs. Gradually, the campaign gained momentum at the global level and all the countries started making laws on this subject. In India too, considering the sexual and reproductive health of women, many legislative acts were passed. In case of puttaswamy, Supreme Court held that women's constitutional freedom to make reproductive decisions as part of their personal liberty under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution[1]. The Supreme Court of India and other state high courts have taken significant steps towards recognizing the denial of reproductive rights as a violation of women's and girls' basic and human rights. This section highlights key decisions that have clearly established that women's and girl's legal rights to reproductive healthcare and autonomy give rise to a range of government obligations, including providing affordable, timely, and quality maternal health care; guaranteeing access to the full range of contraceptive methods in a non-coercive, quality, and target-free manner; preventing child marriage; and ensuring freedom from forced pregnancy. The National Family Health Survey-4 (2016) household-level results are analyzed in this research, and the data is supplemented with existing literature on domestic violence in India. The goal is to comprehend life cycle trends that affect a woman's sexual and reproductive health and, in turn, the nutrition of her offspring. Women's empowerment and agency, child health and nutrition, and sexual and reproductive health are the topics being investigated. What effects do spousal abuse and the concurrent lack of economic and personal agency have on the malnutrition cycle that affects multiple generations at a time? In order to safeguard women's and girls' rights to a life of safety and security, the paper presents a data-driven case for India in preventative initiatives and policy[2]. According to a 2017 study conducted in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, GBV is a risk factor for unwanted births among married adolescent and young adult women. Studies from several nations have also found moderate to severe positive correlations between IPV and clinical depression. These studies found that women who had experienced intimate-partner violence had a two- to three fold greater risk of depressive disorders, as well as a 1.5- to two fold increased risk of heightened depressive symptoms and postpartum depression. These women reported higher levels of worry and sadness, as well as an increased risk of low birth weight babies, preterm delivery, and neonatal mortality. In one 2005 study, South Asian women in the US indicated that domestic violence limited their sexual liberty and raised the likelihood of unwanted pregnancies. They reveal that women in India who have experienced domestic abuse had a 35.5 percent increased likelihood of having a medical termination of pregnancy[3]. These abortions are likely to cause serious consequences. Similar findings exist in the present literature, indicating that violence frequently serves as a catalyst for women to decide to abort their pregnancy. Research in rural India indicates that domestic violence increases the likelihood of pregnant women seeking induced abortions and reporting subsequent violence, and vice versa. It was also discovered that women with greater socioeconomic level and education are more likely to choose to have an abortion if necessary. While there is a link between opting to medically terminate a pregnancy and domestic abuse, none exists for pregnancy outcomes or problems. The NFHS-4 sample analyzed for this article yielded contradictory results when compared to current literature. There is no significant relationship between the incidence of domestic violence and reproductive health indicators such as stillbirths, miscarriages, or, more specifically, reproductive care such as opting for treatment for post-abortion complications, ante-natal or post-natal care, or even the use of contraception methods. Violence during pregnancy is known to induce adverse health impacts on the developing baby, such as the risk of pre-term birth and low birth weight due to the direct trauma or abuse and the physiological effects of stress[4]. This pattern is not exclusive to India. In Timor-Leste, women who experienced many forms of violence were twice as likely to end their pregnancy. In Iran, intimate partner violence has been linked to negative maternal outcomes such as preterm labour, prenatal hospitalization, and vaginal hemorrhage. Other side effects include vaginal and cervical infections, kidney infections, bleeding during pregnancy, pre-term labour, severe vomiting, severe postpartum depression, breastfeeding difficulties, low self-esteem, poor weight gain, and anemia; cases of maternal mortality have also been documented. The data also show that women who experience any type of abuse at home are 15% less likely to give birth in an institutional setting and more likely to deliver at home[5]. Rural Uttar Pradesh exhibits comparable conduct, with a high prevalence of violence before or during pregnancy leading to harmful reproductive or pregnancy behavior, inadequate post-natal care, and restricted spousal communication about future family planning. Similar results were reported in Maharashtra, where a new participant, the mother-in-law, actively blocked their daughter-in-law's access to health treatments. In-law violence lowered the incidence of first trimester antenatal visits. Our sample also discovered that women who have experienced domestic abuse are around 6% more likely (statistically significant) to have unmet family planning requirements. Literature from other low and lower-middle-income nations confirms this finding, while also revealing the widespread usage of traditional ways to avoid pregnancy. |
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| Objective of study |
The main objective of my research paper is to find out the
adverse effects of domestic violence on women's health and reproductive health.
One of the objective of my research paper is to make women aware about domestic
violence and to stop domestic violence against women and to improve their
health. One of the aims of my research paper is to find out how to improve the
reproductive health of women which is deteriorating day by day due to domestic
violence. |
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| Review of Literature | Through this paper the research seeks to highlight the purpose of the protection of women from domestic violence and improve women's reproductive health the research paper helps take the help of textbook such as Domestic Violence Against Women in India authored by AK Singh, SP Singh ,SP Pandey. Feminist Counselling and Domestic Violence in India edited by Padma Bhate, Sangeetharege, Padma Prakash this volume offers one of the first systematic documentation of feminist psychosocial interventions in India But this book is silent about reproductive health of women in India my research paper covers this topic. The book "Law Relating to Women and Children (2012)" edited by Abhinanadan Malik discusses about the role relating to children and women. at the same time experience of the last few years suggest that provisions of the 498A of Indian penal code and Domestic Violence Act 2005 requires a fresh look. I read article Exploring Domestic Violence Among Women in India : Prevalence, Correlates and Implications this article assesses the frequency of domestic violence in India and Investigates the demographic and socio economic condition of domestic abuse victims, but the shortcoming of this research paper is that it talks about the social economic condition of women suffering from domestic violence, but does not talk about their reproductive health and how to improve their health. My research paper will cover all these topics and how to prevent women's reproductive health and domestic violence. |
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| Hypothesis | Due to domestic violence, women's health and reproductive health is deteriorating day by day and problems like infertility are being seen in them. | ||||||
| Conclusion | Violence also violates women's human rights, and a human
rights framework is critical for driving public health policy and practice.
While we have made significant progress 15 years after the ICPD, notably in
acknowledging the importance of addressing violence as a crucial component of
achieving sexual and reproductive health rights, there is still much work to be
done. Health policy and healthcare delivery, particularly those concerning
sexual and reproductive health, must address violence more comprehensively.
This would also enable us to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5
targets of universal access to reproductive health and reduced maternal
mortality, as well as contribute to the achievement of all MDGs. The
International Commission on Population and Development recognized women's
reproductive and sexual health rights as critical to their overall health. The
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
contains several articles that serve as the foundation for these rights. This
article investigates the linguistic context of women's rights to sexual and
reproductive health, as reflected in this and other international human rights
instruments. The rights to reproductive and sexual health encompass the right
to life, liberty, and security of person; the right to health care and
information; and the right to non-discrimination in the allocation of resources
to health services, as well as their availability and accessibility. The rights
to autonomy and privacy in making sexual and reproductive decisions are of
essential importance. Reproductive rights, according to the International
Centre for Reproductive Rights, "rest on the recognition of the basic
right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the
number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and
means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and
reproductive health." The text is drawn from Article 16(1) (e) of the
Women's Convention, which specifies that specifies Parties shall ensure that
men and women are treated equally. The right to reproductive choice means that
women have the freedom to choose whether or not to reproduce, including the
right to carry or terminate an undesired pregnancy, as well as the right to
choose their chosen method of family planning. The right to reproductive choice
means that women have the freedom to choose whether or not to reproduce,
including the right to carry or terminate an unwanted pregnancy, as well as the
right to use their preferred method of family planning and contraception. A
non-governmental report identified a violation of this right in the form of
rampant pregnancy-based discrimination against women working in Mexico's
export-processing (maquiladora). A fact-finding expedition looking into claims
of the practice discovered that all women applying for jobs in this industry
were routinely obliged to undergo pregnancy tests for screening, and that hired
women were forced to quit if they became pregnant. |
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| Suggestions for the future Study | Good sexual and reproductive health are essential for women's overall health and well-being. It is critical to their ability to make choices and decisions about their lives, such as when or whether to have children. Sexual and reproductive health is not only about physical well-being; it also includes the right to healthy and respectful relationships, health services that are inclusive, safe, and appropriate, access to accurate information, effective and affordable contraception methods, and access to timely support and services related to. Violence against women is one of the most common human rights violations, as well as a public health issue that requires immediate attention. It is frequently referred to as gender-based violence because it is both maintained and reinforces gender inequality, which places women and girls in lower positions. This violence has terrible effects for women's lives and health, including sexual and reproductive health, as well as human rights. Violence against women can take various forms, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. It can occur in the family, community, or state institutions and be committed by intimate male partners, acquaintances, or strangers. Women may be at a higher risk in particular contexts, such as those involving conflict, displacement, or imprisonment. Intimate male partners are frequently the primary perpetrators of violence against women, also known as intimate partner violence, "domestic" violence, or "spousal (or wife) abuse." Intimate relationship violence and sexual assault, whether perpetrated by partners, friends, or strangers, are widespread and disproportionately harm women, though not exclusively. Other forms of violence, such as trafficking, disproportionately harm women and children. Sexual violence against civilians, including men, is increasingly documented in crisis zones. Both public health and international human rights law offer mechanisms for more systematic responses to women's right to be free from violence and its repercussions. In terms of service provision, it is critical that women who have experienced abuse have access to the resources they require, including medical, psychiatric, legal, housing, and other necessary support services. In terms of health treatment, providers should at the very least be knowledgeable and aware of the likelihood of violence as a contributing factor to women's illness. This is especially relevant in the context of obstetric and gynecologic treatment, which is one of women's most frequent sites of interaction with the health-care system. This is especially true in resource-poor situations, where women are more likely to seek family planning, prenatal care, birth, and, in certain cases, postnatal care. All of these give potential opportunity to identify women facing abuse and provide necessary interventions. Violence against women is a risk factor for a variety of women's health issues, as well as a possible cause of neonatal, baby, and child health problems. It has an impact on women's health, productivity, and ability to provide for their children and families. Given the human and economic implications, it is critical that public health and healthcare providers educate themselves on the issue and implement appropriate prevention and response initiatives. This study presents evidence-based population-level survey data on abortion, currently undesired pregnancies, sexual and reproductive health problems among married women, and their relationship with IPV among women in India. The current study examined socioeconomic and demographic factors, as well as additional covariates such as number of children born, contraception use, and intergenerational exposure to violence among women during their childhood, which were found to be major predictors of spousal violence. The study found that spousal violence exposure among ever-married women has an impact on women's health, specifically reproductive health and pregnancy outcomes, which are influenced by physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. This study clearly shows that sexual and physical violence are substantial risk factors for pregnancy loss and undesired pregnancies. |
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| References | 1.
International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and ICF. 2017. National
Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 2015-16: India. Mumbai: IIPS. 2. Begum S,
Dwivedi SN, Pandey A, Mittal S. Association between domestic violence and
unintended pregnancies in India: findings from the National Family Health
Survey-2 data. Natl Med J India. 2010;23(4):198. 3. https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12978-021-01174-z 4. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_and_reproductive_health_and_rights |
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| Endnote | 1. K.S Puttaswamy and Anr. Vs. Union of India (2017) 10 SCC1, Puttaswamy l). 2. International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and ICF. 2017. National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), 2015-16: India. Mumbai: IIPS. 3. https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12978-021-01174-z 4. Begum S, Dwivedi SN, Pandey A, Mittal S. Association between domestic violence and unintended pregnancies in India: findings from the National Family Health Survey-2 data. Natl Med J India. 2010;23(4):198. 5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_and_reproductive_health_and_rights |
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