Debolina Chatterjee
St. Xavier’s University Kolkata
Action Area III, B, Newtown
Kolkata, West Bengal (India)
Sohini Ganguly
St. Xavier’s University Kolkata
Action Area III, B, Newtown
Kolkata, West Bengal (India)
Introduction
Domestic violence as a major human rights violation and public health issue, incurring significant costs on individuals, families, communities, and societies, has gained prominence in academic scholarship and policymaking since several decades. Population- level surveys on intimate partner violence which is referred to as the violence perpetrated by an intimate partner or ex-partner that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse, and controlling behaviors, reveal that globally, almost one-third of women aged 15-49 years and, in a relationship, have faced physical and/or sexual domestic violence or abuse (WHO, 2021). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) like SDG 5 which deals with achieving gender equality and SDG 16 which aims at promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and strives towards minimizing violence and deaths related to domestic violence and dowry, offer frameworks to measure the impact of gender discrimination and violence against other developmental dimensions. Despite such attempts, the rate of decline of the prevalence of violence has remained low across nations, and women continue to be victimized in both public and private spheres. In India, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) reports 28.8% and 22% of women being subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetimes and in the twelve months preceding the survey, respectively (NFHS, 2017)……………………….
