From Past to Present: Children’s Exposure of Domestic Violence and Subsequent Experience of IPV in Adulthood Among Women.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious social problem that affects the health and wellbeing of millions of women worldwide. Previous studies demonstrate that witnessing IPV in childhood is strongly associated with IPV. Specifically, findings from Kenya, Turkey, Bangladesh, Thailand, Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan demonstrate that witnessing IPV in childhood increases the risk of experiencing later physical abuse in an international lens. Research suggests that witnessing parental violence may lead to acceptance of IPV as normal method of conflict resolution. Thus, utilization of violence becomes the behavioural model: men who witnessed parental violence are more likely to employ physical violence against their female partners whereas women who observed IPV in their family-of-origin learn to tolerate aggressive behaviour and become victims of IPV. However, other studies have found no significant association between witnessing IPV in childhood and subsequent experience of IPV. Therefore, the association between witnessing IPV in family-of-origin and experience of IPV in adulthood requires further attention.

The objective of this research is to compare the prevalence of physical IPV (e.g., hitting, pushing, slapping, etc.) and whether witnessing IPV in family of origin is associated with women’s experience of IPV in adulthood in ten developing countries in different regions: Mali, Haiti, Jordan, Peru, the Philippines, Pakistan, Cambodia, Egypt, the Dominican Republic, and Nigeria. The data used for this research are derived from the Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in the above-mentioned countries in 2012-2015.

The results of this study indicate that having witnessed IPV in family of origin significantly (by 50-500%) increases the likelihood of experiencing later abuse for respondents in all countries. Furthermore, it was found that some of the control variables (e.g., education, number of children, and wealth) are correlates with IPV in some countries under investigation while are not associated with IPV experience in some other.