The Relationship Between Pregnancy and Domestic Violence in Mali

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the magnitude of the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy. The data from the Demographic and Health Surveys in Mali in 2006 and 2012 was used and was confined to the respondents selected for the domestic violence module. The association between experience of domestic violence ‘ever’ and ‘in the past year’ with selected factors were examined by logistic regression and adjusted for cluster weight and sample weight. The result revealed that in 2006, the risk and frequency of physical IPV increases by 16% and emotional IPV increases by 31% when the woman in the relationship is pregnant. This is no longer significant in 2012. Additional results found that the risk and frequency of IPV increases by an average of 41% when the last child was wanted later and increases by an average of 72% when the last child wasn’t wanted. Physical IPV tended to be more prevalent in lower wealth quintiles, while emotional IPV tended to be more prevalent in higher quintiles.