Women's perceptions of intimate partner violence and help seeking practices: A study among low-income married women in southern India

Responding to the pervasiveness of intimate partner violence (IPV) and its adverse impact on women's health, the Indian government and non-governmental sector have established a range of services to protect and enforce women's rights and provide secondary support including shelter and income-generation opportunities. These services, however, remain underutilized, and little is known about factors that impede or motivate women to seek help. The Samata Health Study (SHS) followed 744 married, low-income women utilizing primary-care in Bangalore city for two years examining issues of gender, sexuality, reproductive health, and women's experiences of IPV. This paper describes the perspectives of a subset of SHS participants (n=31) on IPV severity and help seeking, collected through in-depth interviews.

Three main themes emerged. First, women's perceptions of IPV severity varied widely. Participants categorized the severity of IPV, such as ‘being beaten', for example, based on whether the beating attracted public attention, was persistent, or caused injury. Second, marital and gender norms influenced women's thresholds of tolerance and help-seeking practices. Participants felt women should tolerate IPV if their husbands were loyal and provided for them, while the violation of these conditions warranted help seeking. Finally, when women sought help they consistently chose family and friends over institutional services. Findings highlight the need for support services to start from where women themselves are, by understanding women's contexts, normative beliefs, and factors motivating help seeking. Moreover, engaging with the community to facilitate broader social change may be critical to reduce IPV and improve women's overall health and well-being.