Do ethnicity and polygyny contribute to justification of men beating women in Ghana?
Violence against intimate partners threatens public health and social cohesion, and its prevalence could increase with an attitude of justification of such violence. The objective of this article was to use religion and ethnicity as proxies for culture to examine Ghanaian women's acceptance of being beaten. We employed descriptive and binary logistic regression statistics applied to Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey data collected in 2011 in Ghana. With a weighted sample of 10,627 women, the findings revealed that more than half (59.83%, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 57.41%, 62.2%) of the respondents justified at least one form of intimate partner violence (IPV) or another and being a Mole-Dagbani (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.41; 95%; CI = 1.05, 1.90) and/or in a polygamous marriage/union (AOR = 1.22; 95% CI = 1.04, 1.420) were significant risk factors for justifying IPV. Activism in promoting IPV-free communities has to be group-specific to reach those in need of interventions.
a Department of Population and Health , University of Cape Coast , Cape Coast , Ghana.
Joshua
J
Amo-Adjei
b School of Medical Sciences , University of Cape Coast , Cape Coast , Ghana.
Derek Anamaale
DA
Tuoyire
D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D044383:Black People / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005869:Ghana; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012747:Sexual Partners; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014754:Violence / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology
Ethnicity; Ghana; intimate partner violence; justification; polygyny