Abstract:
Background: Violence against women is a serious human rights abuse & public health issue, owing to
its substantial consequences for women's physical, mental & reproductive health which is mostly
perpetuate by current or former husband. Recently it is a global problem of refugees which instilling
fears in the lives of victims profoundly affected by their displacement. Because incidents are underreported, the true scale of the problem is unknown and examined infrequently among refugee women
in Ethiopia.
Objective: To assess the magnitudes, factors associated and immediate consequence of partner‟s
physical violence among women in Shimelba Refugee camp, Tigray Region, Ethiopia.
Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study that includes both quantitative & qualitative
methods of data collection was conducted among a sample of 422 women with male partner form
March 26 to April 19, 2011. A simple random sampling technique was used to get study subjects
proportional allocated from six zones & one new site in the camp after enumerating all household with
women having male partner. A pre-tested interviewer guided structured questionnaire was employed.
Data were entered, cleaned & analyzed using SPSS version 16.0 statistical package. Bivariate &
multivariate logistic regression analysis was employed whenever appropriate.
Results: The prevalence of physical violence by their partners in the lifetime & within the last 12
months was 131(31.04%) & 107(25.35%) respectively. The most frequently reported act of violence
includes slapping 101(61.6%) followed by throwing objects 32(19.5%). Among the abused women in
their lifetime, 81(61.07%) experienced health related problems. The most common types of health
problems reported include difficulty with daily activity 51(63%), pain 19(23.5%), difficult in walking
12(14.8%), fracture/dislocations 2(2.5%). Being farmer (AOR=13.1[95%C.I: 3.7, 45.6), women know
other husband to beat his wife in neighbor (AOR=1.9[95%C.I:1.002, 3.5]), history of women mother
beating (AOR=6.7 [95%C.I: 3.2, 14.4]), having drinker partner (AOR=2.2[95%C.I: 1.04, 4.6]), were
the risk factor for being victim of violence but having employed partner (AOR=0.07[95%C.I:0.1,
0.4]) was reduce risk of physical violence.
Conclusions and recommendation: The prevalence of partners‟ physical violence among refugee
women was high which is contributed to multiple health problems, indicating the need for multifaceted interventions, such as IEC, male counseling, special GBV care service to the victims and
encourages women to report to legal bodies‟.
