Experience of Intimate Partner violence among married couples: the case of Mashonaland Central, Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Mashonaland Central province has had the most recorded cases of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) as recorded by 2021 statistics. The study, using triangulated qualitative and quantitative methods, tested the hypothesis that both women and men are abused. SPSS Version 21 was used to do a multinomial regression on how sex, age gap, and income affects IPV’s distribution. A survey was used to measure the levels of IPV in the province while qualitative data from face-to-face interviews was used to help explain these levels. With 16.5% prevalence rate, sexual violence was the least form of IPV suffered followed by physical violence at 17%, economic abuse at 27.5%, and emotional abuse at 33.5%. Sexual violence was mostly perpetrated by men with odds of women suffering it higher by 4 times (OR = 4.61; 95%CI = (0.216–0.985) than men. Moreover, the less a man earned coupled with the spouse earning more, the more he physically abused her. If a woman earned <ZWL$10000, she suffered emotionally and economically. Men who suffered violence reported to have suffered emotionally, in the hands of their wealthy counterparts. The study therefore recommends for easily accessible couple’s therapies and more psycho social support services for abused men.

Keywords

• intimate partner violence
• prevalence
• physical violence
• economic violence
• emotional abuse
• Zimbabwe