Abstract

Domestic violence has continued to be a global epidemic that kills and tortures physically, psychologically, economically and socially. This study sought to investigate the influence of domestic violence against women on their socioeconomic status in the Buea municipality, Cameroon. The study was meant to achieve two objectives: To investigate the influence of domestic violence against women on their social status and, to analyze the influence of domestic violence against women on their economic status. The prevalence of domestic is higher in Cameroon as a developing nation. Generally, this research enables you to better understand social conditions and social issues broadly and how these perspectives impact on society’s response. The theoretical framework that guided this study was based on the Conflict Theory, Social learning theory, Feminist Theory and Power Theory which provided insights on domestic-related violence. This research employed mainly random sampling. Data was analyzed using Chi square, Pearson correlation coefficient and Anova analysis. 384 women were the target of the study determined using Cochran 1977 formula for calculating sample size for finite population. A sample size of 100 women, 50 in married relationships, and 50 in unmarried relationships were used for the study. The sample size was determined using the stratified probability sampling technique. In addition, the researcher prepared questionnaires which were administered during the data collection process. The data helped in generating frequencies and percentages of the variable values. The findings of the study indicated that domestic violence is a vice that affects women from all regions in the Buea municipality. It was quite prevalent from households where women had low educational levels, young, unemployed, low income levels, and large families which they could not attend to. Additionally, domestic violence had an adverse effect on women’s socioeconomic status. This study significantly contributed to new knowledge in order to assist researchers and policy makers in understanding of various issues which are related to domestic violence. It is also possible to understand and appreciate with an intention of reducing/curbing the various causes and effects of domestic violence. The study recommended that in order to curb this issue of domestic violence, women should be empowered through public awareness education, encouraging women to report crimes to police, supporting women through individual work and group work and supporting women through enabling disclosure.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

According to the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women United Nations (UN) Commission (1994), violence against women means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. It moves beyond individual acts of violence to include forms of institutionalized sexism that severely compromise the health and well-being of women. A World Health Organization (WHO) report estimates that one in three women across the globe has experienced physical and/or sexual assault at some point in her lifetime, indicating the epidemic scale of such violence. The report demonstrates the significant health impacts without a doubt, physical and sexual violence perpetrated against women is a major public health concern. Domestic violence against women also has significant economic costs in terms of expenditures on service provision, lost income for women and their families, decreased productivity, and negative impacts on future human capital formation. The health and economic impacts together fracture individuals, families, communities and societies overall (WHO, 2013).

Worldwide estimates published by WHO indicate that about 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. Worldwide, almost one third (30%) of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner in their lifetime. Violence can negatively affect women’s physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health, and may increase the risk of acquiring HIV in some settings. Men are more likely to perpetrate violence if they have low education, a history of child maltreatment, exposure to domestic violence against their mothers, harmful use of alcohol, unequal gender norms including attitudes accepting violence, and a sense of entitlement over women. Also, Women are more likely to experience intimate partner violence if they have low education, exposure to mothers being abused by a partner, abuse during childhood, and attitudes accepting violence, male privilege, and women’s subordinate status (WHO, 2017).

Statistics published in 1997 by the World Health Organization on studies conducted in 24 countries in America, Europe and Asia revealed that about 20% and 50% of the women interviewed reported that they suffered physical abuse from their male partners. Moreover, according to an international report on the status of women in 140 countries, the number of women reporting physical abuse by a male partner during the period 1986-1993 was 21% to 60% (Neft & Levine, 1997). Besides, a study done in South Africa showed that one adult woman out of every six is assaulted regularly by her mate. In at least 46% of these cases, the men involved also abuse the women’s children (Russell, 1991). In addition, a study in northern Nigeria found that 16% of female patients seeking treatment for STDs were children under the age of five and 10% of these were cases of incest (UNFPA, 1999). In a representative sample taken from two districts of Uganda, women between 20-44 years reported that 41% had been beaten or physically harmed by a partner (Blanc et al, 1996) For majority of women, the persistent insults, abuse, confinement, harassment and deprivation of financial and physical resources may prove more harmful than physical attacks and result in women living in a permanent state of fear and sub-standard, mental and physical health (UNFPA, 1999). In support of this, the WHO information tool on violence notes that women have reported that the mental torture and living in fear and terror was undoubtedly the worst and most profound and long-lasting aspect of gender-based violence (WHO, 1997).

In developing countries, the underlying cause for many problems including domestic violence is the poor socio-economic conditions of people, which is linked with women’s lack of empowerment and poor social status (Karmaliani et al., 2012)

In sub-Saharan Africa, in 1998, 66.7% of the surveyed women in Sierra Leone had experienced physical abuse at the hands of their partners. The preliminary report of the special reporter on violence against women (United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), 2004) argues that women’s vulnerability to violence is determined by their sexuality, resulting for example in rape or female genital mutilation (FGM), from their relationships to some men and from membership of groups where violence against women is a means of humiliation directed at specific group (e.g. mass rape in conflict situations). Violence against women is reinforced by doctrines of privacy and the sanctity of the family, and by legal codes which link individual, family or community honor to women’s sexuality. However, the greatest cause of violence against women is government tolerance and inaction. Its most significant consequence is fear, which inhibits women’s social and political participation (UNDP, 1997).

Domestic violence in Cameroon is a pervasive problem. A 2012 study found that, of 2,570 women, 995 (38.7%) reported physical violence and 381 (14.8%) reported sexual violence. These data correspond with other statistics, including a study from Douala-based “La Maison des Droits de l’Homme” that approximately 39% of Cameroonian women suffered from physical violence in 2008. These numbers indicate that little has been done to stem the epidemic of domestic violence in Cameroon in recent years. The vast majority of victims are female: 92% of domestic violence victims in Cameroon are women. (L’Association Camerounaise des Femmes Juristes, Luta contre les violences faites aux femmes au Cameroun: Une mobilisation Considérable, Justice & Solidarité, July 2012).

1.2 Problem Statement

Violence against women is one of the most pervasive of human rights violations, denying women equality, security, dignity, self-worth, and their right to enjoy fundamental freedoms in the world. Domestic violence against women is a multifaceted problem that requires proactive mitigation strategies by the society, government, families and individuals. According to United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF, 2014), the issue of domestic violence is a major problem in the society in that, the main victims; women and children suffer from it, “in places where they should be safest: within their families at the hands of somebody close to them- somebody they should be able to trust”.

The Buea municipality, has a population of about 300,000 with a female population of 186,000 (2013 census) has extremely limited laws pertaining to women’s rights and domestic violence (World Bank, 2014). These laws do not exactly forbid domestic violence, although assault is sometimes punishable by fines and imprisonment yet not always prohibited (U. S. Department of State, 2011). La Maison des Droits de l’Homme (The House of Human Rights) a nongovernmental organization in Cameroon, posited in its 2008 study that nearly 40% of women had suffered physical abuse from their partners (U.S. Department of State, 2011). Another survey from the national newspaper Cameroon Tribune indicated that about 20% to 40% of women living with a male partner were victims of either physical or psychological violence (U. S. Department of State, 2011).

Additional abuses against women and girls include physical beating, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, breast ironing, widow’s rites, psychological abuse, and discrimination in education, finance, employment, and legal access. Cameroon has adopted strategies aimed at eliminating violence against women, including ratification of international policies, penal codes, and support of local and international efforts that promote women; however, many of the laws remain in name only and are rarely enforced, given women’s lack of financial access to quality lawyers and an unsympathetic male-dominated police force. Underreporting and culturally accepted abuses remain a challenge, too, as the country seeks to understand the extent of abuses and how to effectively fight against them. A complete paradigm shift in cultural attitude toward the female gender is required for abuses to cease (Chishugi, Franke, 2016)

In terms of actual numbers, according to a demographic and health survey conducted by the Cameroon’s National Institute for Statistics (INS,2004), with technical assistance from Maryland-based ORC Macro, in 2004, 39 percent, 14 percent and 28 percent of the surveyed women who were in a relationship or who had been in a relationship had respectively experienced physical violence, sexual violence or emotional violence at the hands of their partner (INS and ORC Macro, 2005). The country profile accompanying the 2009 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) for Cameroon, which is published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), points out that while there is a lack of reliable statistics on the number of women affected by violence in the country, the number of media reports on such cases indicates that this phenomenon is widespread. A poster that was presented at the International Conference on Population in 2009 states that the persistent high rate of violence against women in Cameroon can be partly explained by the fact that such violence may be ignored or even accepted by the society (Takwa, 2009). Similarly, the shadow report submitted to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) indicates that violence against women is very prevalent but lacks recognition as a social problem since it is sometimes invariably accepted as a way of life (WIRA et al., 2007).

Majority of women going through some form of domestic violence in the Buea municipality tend to have a very low socioeconomic status. This is mostly because women experiencing violence most often than not, are prevented from working, restricted from interacting with friends, shy away from attaining their full potentials. Sometimes, they do it intentionally but most often, they are forced to do so by their perpetrators of violence. They hardly attain high levels of education, rarely climb to the top of their employment ladder, always shy away from social activities and do not always have control of their income. Most of these violated women spend most of their time in hospitals, legal departments or even lost in their own very little world of depression and pain, most of them feel trapped in these violent and unproductive relationships being that they cannot leave for one reason or another. All these most often prevents them from being very productive or even interactive.

In Buea, Cameroon, domestic violence against women continues to be one of the major issues being handled by the chiefs and the court of law. It is in this view that this study was carried out on the influence of domestic violence against women on their socioeconomic status.

Research Questions

The major question the study targets is:

What is the influence of domestic violence against women on their socioeconomic status in the Buea municipality?

Specific Research Questions

1. What is the influence of domestic violence against women on their social status in the Buea municipality?
2. What is the influence of domestic violence against women on their economic status in the Buea municipality?