Coexistence on women's empowerment and domestic violence in the context of receiving health care in India

• 主要作者: Mahapatro, Meerambika
• 格式: Conference or Workshop Item
• 语言: English
• 出版: 2013
• 主题: HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
• 在线阅读: http://repo.uum.edu.my/18514/1/ICAW%202013%201-12.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/18514/

Women’s empowerment is key to attain better maternal and child health (MCH) outcomes. Empowerment often seen and understood through economic perspective, control over resources, education and employment of women. Participation in decision making is the keys to protect women from domestic violence by gaining control over material resources which can lead to greater participation in household decision-making.Although, the cultural underpinnings to domestic violence (DV), especially in India, where the study found a woman's risk of being beaten, kicked or hit rose along with her level of education. These indicators have marginal differences in the risk of DV reported among the small urban pockets of India or the culturally less conservative areas. This paper attempts to understand the problematic process of power over decision-making in domestic violence into perspective by analyzing the social indicators of empowerment by various factors like women’s education, occupation, income and women decision and receive of health care. The study is a multicentre cross sectional analytical study covered 18 states of India with 14,405 women respondents.This paper brings out that although employment and education provides independent leverage for reducing the risk of domestic violence; the culture and community factor in India modify the protective influence. Despite of substantive possession of the existing attributes of women’s empowerment, women victim fails to receive needed health care services. The outcome of the study also reflects a situation of biased policy process and institutional framework. The policy implementation process is a reflection of existing patriarchal norms in the country resulting in piece meal processes of entitlements. Currently, given the cultural flux that India is experiencing, a woman who challenges her husband's right to control her behavior is seen as problematic.The solution lies when the society, its customs and institutions are interwoven with the threads of equality.India can be seen today as a state in transition.The status will improve only when access and the form in which women participate in policy processes, implementation and redressal changes to women enabling rather than women hindering.