Somebody’s Life, Everybody’s Business! National Research on Women’s Health and Life Experiences in Fiji (2010/2011): A Survey Exploring the Prevalence, Incidence and Attitudes to Intimate Partner iolence in Fiji

AUTHOR(S)
Fiji Women's Crisis Centre
Security

Fiji’s rates of violence against women and girls are among the very highest in the world:
• 64% of women who have ever been in an intimate relationship have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a husband or intimate partner in their lifetime and 24% are suffering from physical or sexual partner violence today.
• 58% of ever-partnered women experienced emotional violence in their lifetime, and 29% in the previous 12 months before the survey.
• 72% of ever-partnered women experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence from their husband/ partner in their lifetime, and many suffered from all 3 forms of abuse simultaneously.
• 69% of women have been subjected to one or more forms of control by their husband or partner, and 28% were subjected to 4 or more types of control. For example, 39% of women have to ask permission from their husbands before seeking health care for themselves and for 57% of women, their husband or partner insists on knowing where they are at all times.
• Women living with intimate partner violence are also subjected to economic abuse: 28% of ever-partnered women had husbands or partners who either took their savings or refused to give them money.
• 44% of ever-partnered women have been punched, kicked, dragged, beaten up, choked, burned, threatened with a weapon, or actually had a weapon used against them.
• 15% of women have been beaten during pregnancy, and one-third of these were punched or kicked in the abdomen by their husband or partner.
• 31% of women were subjected to physical and/or sexual assault since the age of 15 by someone other than their husbands and partners.
• 16% of all women were sexually abused when they were children under the age of 15.
• The majority of perpetrators of rape, attempted rape and child sexual assault were people known by their victims.
• 58% believe that people outside the family should not intervene if a man mistreats his wife.
• 30% of ever-partnered women are injured due to domestic violence in their lifetime; only about 1 in 10 tell a health worker the true cause of their injury, and many do not get the health care they need.
• 43% of women agree with one or more ‘justifications’ for a man to beat his wife: 60% agree that a good wife obeys her husband even if she disagrees; 55% believe that it is important for a man to show his wife/partner who is the boss; 53% do not agree that woman has the right to choose her own friends, and 33% believe that a wife is obliged to provide sex, even if she doesn’t feel like it.

The most common situations mentioned by women where violence occurs include:
• Jealousy by her husband.
• Her disobedience.
• His desire to show he is the boss.
• Drunkenness.

Research Type(s)
Report – Not peer reviewed
Submitted by Toksave
March 22, 2021
Published in
2013
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