Domestic violence against women: An investigation of hospital casualty records, Mumbai

Abstract

Domestic violence against women is increasingly recognised as a major health and social problem in India. It is also a concern for public health. Not only is violence against, women widespread, deeply entrenched, silently borne, and relatively impervious to women's situation, but also attitudes uniformly justify life beating, and few women would opt out of an abusive marriage (Jejeebhoy, 1998) (Jejeebhoy and Cook, 1997). At the same time, there is a dearth of information on the magnitude and patterns of domestic violence against women in India, particularly by way of community based data. Facility based data-from police, court, hospital, and NGO records do exist, but these data remain scattered, poorly maintained, and seldom