Background: Globally, studies report a high prevalence of intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) and an association with HIV infection. Despite the criminalisation of IPSV and deliberate sexual HIV infection in Zimbabwe, IPSV remains common. This study explored women's and health workers' perspectives and experiences of sexuality and sexual violence in pregnancy, including in relation to HIV testing.
Methods: This qualitative study was part of a larger study of the dynamics of intimate partner violence and HIV in pregnancy in Zimbabwe. Key informant interviews were conducted with health workers and focus group discussions were held with 64 pregnant or nursing mothers attending antenatal and postnatal care clinics in low-income neighbourhoods of Harare, covering the major thematic areas of validated sexual violence research instruments. Thematic content analysis of audio-recorded and transcribed data was conducted.
Results: While women reported some positive experiences of sex in pregnancy, most participants commonly experienced coercive sexual practices. They reported that men failed to understand, or refused to accept, pregnancy and its associated emotional changes, and often forced painful and degrading sexual acts on them, usually while the men were under the influence of alcohol or illicit drugs. Men often refused or delayed HIV testing, and participants reported accounts of HIV-positive men not disclosing their status to their partners and deliberately infecting or attempting to infect them. Women's passive acceptance of sexual violence was influenced by advice they received from other females to subordinate to their partners and to not deprive men of their conjugal sexual rights.
Conclusions: Cultural and societal factors, unequal gender norms and practices, women's economic vulnerability, and men's failure to understand pregnancy and emotional changes, influence men to perpetrate IPSV, leading to high risk of HIV infection.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427310 | PMC |
| http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0043148 | PLOS |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Prevalence and Factor Influencing Intimate Partner Violence against Women during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Med J Islam Repub Iran
September 2024
Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran.
Background: It seems that the prevalence of intimate partner violence increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. To investigate the prevalence of different types of IPV and its contributing factors on a global scale during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: This is a systematic review and meta-analysis study.
Partner conflict during their index pregnancy and its correlates among a cohort of six weeks postpartum women in Ethiopia.
Sci Rep
January 2025
Metages Yohannes Health Research Consultancy, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Current intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy was found to be associated with adverse health outcomes including pregnancy loss, preterm labor, pregnancy complications, hypertension, delivering low birth weight baby, physical injuries and stress. IPV in Ethiopia is considerably high. This study aimed at determining the prevalence of the IPV during the index pregnancy as measured at six weeks postpartum among women in their extended six weeks postpartum period and identify its correlates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnger's moderating influence on the relationship between victimization and perpetration of domestic violence and abuse in patients suffering from severe mental illness. Insights from a cross sectional study using moderated mediation analysis.
Front Psychiatry
December 2024
Department of Psychiatry, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Introduction: Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) are prevalent among persons with severe mental illness (SMI), being involved as victim, perpetrator, or both.
Aims: To assess rates of DVA victimization and perpetration in patients with SMI. We also aimed to assess whether DVA victimization was associated with DVA perpetration, and whether this was mediated by dispositional anger in patients with SMI.
Sociodemographic factors associated with trajectories of depression among urban refugee youth in Kampala, Uganda: A longitudinal cohort study.
Glob Ment Health (Camb)
December 2024
Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
Background: There is a high prevalence of depression among refugee youth in low- and middle-income countries, yet depression trajectories are understudied. This study examined depression trajectories, and factors associated with trajectories, among urban refugee youth in Kampala, Uganda.
Methods: We conducted a longitudinal cohort study with refugee youth aged 16-24 in Kampala, Uganda.
Serious mental health conditions and exposure to adulthood trauma in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review.
Glob Ment Health (Camb)
November 2024
South African Medical Research Council Unit on the Genomics of Brain Disorders, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa.
Background: There is a strong link between trauma exposure and serious mental health conditions (SMHCs), such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The majority of research in the field has focused on childhood trauma as a risk factor for developing an SMHC and on samples from high-income countries. There is less research on having an SMHC as a risk factor for exposure to traumatic events, and particularly on populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!