**Bhubaneswar: ** The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) Report published by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for the year 2015-16 and recently released at the State Secretariat here reveals that 35 percent of women in Odisha have experienced physical and sexual violence.
As per the report, 33 percent of Odisha women (15-49 age) have ever experienced physical violence while 7 percent have ever experienced sexual violence.
The startling revelation is that the most common perpetrator for the married women is the husband and for the unmarried women is either the mother or step-mother.
On ‘violence during pregnancy’, the NFHS-4 Report states that 3 percent of Odisha women experience physical violence during one or more of their pregnancies. Christian women and women who are widowed, divorced, separated or deserted, 9 percent are more likely than women in any oher group to have experienced violence during pregnancy, the Report claimed.
On ‘spousal violence’, the report reveals, “30% of married women have been slapped by their husband, 9-13% being pushed, shaken, having something thrown at them, having their arm twisted or hair pulled, being punched or being kicked, dragged, or beaten up.”
“1-3% have been choked or burned on purpose or being threatened or attacked with a knife, gun or any other weapon,” the Report added.
It is also stated, “7% percent of Odisha women report that their husbands have physically forced them to have sex even when they did not want to and 6% of the women report that their husband forced them with threats or other ways to perform sexual acts they did not want to perform.”
The Report further stated, “Although the prevalence of spousal violence is lower among more educated women, 1 in 6 women who have at least 12 years of schooling have experienced physical or sexual spousal violence.”
“ The contextual and intergenerational aspects of spousal violence are clear from the fact that women whose mothers were beaten by their fathers are more than twice as likely to be in abusive marriages themselves,” the NFHS-4 Report observed.
It is also stated, “Women whose husbands consume alcohol are much more likely than women whose husbands do not consume alcohol to experience spousal violence., especially if the husband often gets drunk. However, 24% of even women whose husbands do not drink alcohol have experienced physical or sexual spousal violence.”
The concluding observations made by the NFHS-4 Report on Domestic Violence said, “Only 13% of women who have experienced physical or sexual violence by anyone have sought help. Over three-fourths of women have neither sought help nor told anyone about the violence. Abused women who have sought help most often seek help from their own families. Only 3% of abused women who sought help for the violence sought help from the police.”