Married Indian women facing physical and sexual violence from husbands are more susceptible to HIV, compared with those who do not suffer such violence.
Harvard study seeks to establish direct link between intimate partner violence and high HIV risk
NEW DELHI: Married Indian women facing physical and sexual violence from husbands are more susceptible to HIV, compared with those who do not suffer such violence, a study published in the latest issue of Journal of American Medicine Archives says.
India is home to around 2.5million HIV+, third highest in the world, and women account for a rising percentage, with husbands’ risk behaviour contributing heavily to the infection.
“Intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with heterosexual transmission of HIV to women in India and elsewhere,” the study claims.
Conducted by Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, the study also had a few Indian experts on board who conducted a study in 2007-2008 to assess the relationship between IPV and HIV in a nationally-representative sample of married Indian women tested for the infection.
The researchers analysed data on 28,139 women as part of national family health survey 2005-2006.
Approximately one-third of the women (35.49%) reported experiencing physical IPV, with or without sexual violence, from husbands. About one-fourth (27.8%) reported experiencing physical IPV without sexual violence, while 7.68% reported both.
Approximately one in 450 women (0.22%) tested positive for HIV. Those experiencing both physical and sexual violence from husbands demonstrated elevated HIV infection prevalence.
The findings also indicated that physical and sexual violence combined related to increased HIV prevalence, while physical violence alone did not.
The reasons include physical trauma resulting from forced sex. Men’s risk behaviour and women’s lack of control over sex or sexual protection have also been blamed.
Previous studies have indicated that elevated sexual risk behaviour of husbands (e.g. unprotected extramarital sex, multiple sex partners, sex with commercial workers, no condom use or forced unprotected sex) is linked with sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) among abusive men, which further causes STIs among women due to IPV.
Married Indian women who experienced both physical and sexual IPV showed four times greater HIV infection prevalence than non-abused women.
p_vineeta@dnaindia.net
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