Male perpetration of physical intimate partner violence against women in southeast Asia: A cultural shortfall?

• Main Authors: Chang, Clarissa, Lim, Daphne Shin Yee
• Other Authors: Gianluca Esposito
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences; DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66446
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Intimate partner violence is a worldwide issue that is predominantly perpetrated by men against women in Southeast Asia. This region holds amongst the highest records of the perpetration of intimate partner violence in low and middle-income regions. The silence of women on their violent encounters have resulted in most cases to go unreported, further encouraging their male intimate partners to perpetuate violence against them. Thus there is insufficient data and non-homogenous structure of previous studies conducted within Southeast Asia. Here we show that culture substantially influences key risk factors of IPV perpetration (patriarchy, gender inequality, and gender roles) across the eleven countries of Southeast Asia. The comparison of risk factors of intimate partner violence was conducted across studies in Southeast Asia, revealing that patriarchy was the main cause for intimate partner violence occurrence. It was also found that the risk factors in Southeast Asia varied from those established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, indicating a disparate trend of intimate partner violence occurrence between Western and Southeast Asian societies. The studies that we reviewed demonstrate a need for a new structure specific to Southeast Asian risk factors for future studies in this area. With this paper, we aim to provide possible alternative guidelines to standardize future researches on intimate partner violence, enabling efficient and effective comparison of such incidences across multiple contexts for more effectual identification of possible perpetrators of intimate partner violence in Southeast Asia.