Intimate Partner Violence & Empowerment: Experimental Evidence from Rural Kenya

• In Event: Global Health Politics in the Global South

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global health problem rooted in gender inequality that spans countries, cultures, and classes. While IPV occurs frequently in conflict settings (Wirtz et al. 2014) (Kelly et al. 2018), it is also prevalent in non-conflict settings (Mannell et al. 2022) and encompasses “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (United Nations 2023). Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the structural inequalities that exist between women and men. Furthermore, lockdowns have exacerbated gender-based violence by increasing women’s exposure to abusive partners (WHO 2020) (Cousins 2020) (Hunter, Hubner, and Kuczura 2021).
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 30% of women worldwide have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by their partner (2021). Accordingly, the WHO has characterized this issue as a “global health problem of epidemic proportions” (2013). Survivors of intimate partner violence suffer health consequences (ranging from anxiety and depression to physical injuries to unintended pregnancies to homicide) as well as economic and social consequences (such as loss of wages and isolation). There exists a pressing need to address this growing public health issue that impacts one in three women.
Due to social desirability bias, rigorous evidence documenting the extent of the problem and evaluating interventions to curb intimate partner violence is difficult to obtain. This project leverages unique survey experiments that overcome this bias, revealing attitudes towards intimate partner violence and the impact of policies to prevent gender-based violence. In July 2022, an original survey including a double list experiment measuring intimate partner violence and a conjoint experiment measuring women’s empowerment was administered to 1,080 women living in rural, Migori County in western Kenya. Drawing on these survey data, this project 1. Quantifies support for intimate partner violence in the region; 2. Links intimate partner violence to women’s empowerment (one of seven WHO-endorsed strategies for preventing violence against women); and 3. Reveals how local policies around sexual harassment and gender-based violence impact agency and decision-making, an integral component of women’s empowerment.
On a micro level, this work documents the extent of this public health problem in rural Kenya and evaluates the local government’s effort to curtail it. Globally, these results are useful for policy makers who seek to understand what programs may or may not work to combat intimate partner violence and enable women’s empowerment. This project also has implications for researchers looking to employ theoretically grounded novel survey experiments for more accurately measuring intimate partner violence and women’s empowerment. Ultimately this research responds to the WHO’s call to the health sector to gather data on intimate partner violence prevalence and evaluate prevention efforts (2021).

Cousins, Sophie. 2020. “COVID-19 Has ‘Devastating’ Effect on Women and Girls.” The Lancet 396(10247): 301–2.

Hunter, Kelly, Sarah Hubner, and Ema Kuczura. 2021. “‘If You Don’t Help Me, I’m Going to Take My Life’: The Devastating Impact of the US’s Global Gag Rule and the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health in Kenya.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 23(2): 350–57.

Kelly, Jocelyn TD, Elizabeth Colantuoni, Courtland Robinson, and Michele R Decker. 2018. “From the Battlefield to the Bedroom: A Multilevel Analysis of the Links between Political Conflict and Intimate Partner Violence in Liberia.” BMJ global health 3(2): e000668.

Mannell, Jenevieve et al. 2022. “Risk Factors for Violence against Women in High-Prevalence Settings: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis.” BMJ global health 7(3): e007704.

Wirtz, Andrea L et al. 2014. “Gender-Based Violence in Conflict and Displacement: Qualitative Findings from Displaced Women in Colombia.” Conflict and health 8(1): 1–14.
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“Violence against Women: A ‘global health problem of epidemic proportions.” 20 June 2013 News Release. World Health Organization, World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/news/item/20-06-2013-violence-against-women-a-global-health-problem-of-epidemic-proportions-. Accessed 20 Oct. 2023.

Author

• Kelly Hunter, Northwestern University