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A Determination of the Prevalence of Gender‐based Violence among Conflict‐affected Populations in East Timor
Author(s) -
Hynes Michelle,
Ward Jeanne,
Robertson Kathryn,
Crouse Chadd
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/j.0361-3666.2004.00260.x
Subject(s) - medicine , occupational safety and health , poison control , sexual violence , domestic violence , demography , suicide prevention , injury prevention , armed conflict , human factors and ergonomics , test (biology) , cross sectional study , environmental health , socioeconomics , geography , political science , nursing , sociology , paleontology , pathology , law , biology
The Reproductive Health Response in Conflict (RHRC) Consortium designed a standardised questionnaire to measure gender‐based violence (GBV) prevalence in conflict‐affected settings. A preliminary field test was undertaken July—August 2002 in one urban and one rural district in East Timor to assess the prevalence of GBV among women 18–49 years of age during and after conflict. The field test used a cross‐sectional survey design with a two‐stage random selection process. During the year preceding East Timor's 1999 crisis, 23.8 per cent of respondents reported physical assault by an intimate partner; this rate was not significantly different in the year preceding the survey (24.8 per cent). Assault by perpetrators outside the family declined significantly from 24.2 per cent during the crisis to 5.8 per cent post‐crisis for physical assault (p<.001) and 22.7 per cent during the crisis to 9.7 per cent post‐crisis for sexual assault (p=0.046). The field test stimulated and informed additional research in East Timor, and the complementary findings of these research initiatives continue to be used to develop local policies and programming to prevent and address GBV.