Gender and Awareness of Laws on Intimate Partner Violence: A Study Among Bengali, Garo, and Santal Ethnic Communities in Rural Bangladesh

Previous studies on intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in Bangladesh rarely focused on the effectiveness of primary prevention strategies like legal remedies. There is also a lack of studies on the issues among the ethnic minority communities in the country. This study examines the awaren...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of interpersonal violence Vol. 38; no. 1-2; pp. 613 - 645
Main Authors:	Karim, Rabiul, Wahab, Nazia, Hossain, Delwar, Swahnberg, Katarina
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-01-2023 SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects:	Bangladesh Community Community Relations Consciousness Domestic violence Ethnic groups Ethnicity Family Violence Female Females Gender Gender differences Health and Caring Sciences Humans Hälsovetenskap Inequality Intimate Partner Violence laws Legal Problems Male Males Marital Status Men Minority Groups Multivariate Analysis Racial differences Rural communities Rural Population Sanctions Villages Wives Women Bangladesh intimate partner violence Bangladesh laws gender ethnicity
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Summary:	Previous studies on intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in Bangladesh rarely focused on the effectiveness of primary prevention strategies like legal remedies. There is also a lack of studies on the issues among the ethnic minority communities in the country. This study examines the awareness of laws on IPV (such as recognizing the abusive acts and knowing the sanctions) among the ethnic Garo and Santal and mainstream Bengali communities in rural Bangladesh. The study randomly included 1929 married women and men from 24 villages. It appeared that the respondents were not adequately aware of the relevant legal provisions. There were also gender and ethnic differences in the issues. On average, the respondents maintained a low score on recognizing abusive acts. The awareness was further lower among the women compared to the men. In addition, multivariate analysis indicated that the Bengali women had relatively a better understanding of the issues than the Garo and Santal women. However, the Garo men showed poorer awareness of recognizing the abusive acts than the Bengali and Santal men. On the other hand, the respondents also maintained a very insufficient knowledge of the sanctions against such abusive acts, whereas women also showed a lower awareness compared to their male counterparts. Data further revealed that the Santal women had a more inadequate understanding of the issues than the Bengali and Garo women. However, the Garo men had more awareness of the sanctions than the Bengali and Santal men. The study reveals that people are unfamiliar with the laws governing IPV. It shows that understanding legal issues is another field of gender and ethnic inequality in the country. We suggest that there should be intervention to make aware the citizen, mainly women of all ethnicities, to ensure the efficacy of the laws.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0886-2605 1552-6518 1552-6518
DOI:	10.1177/08862605221081926