To examine the association between exposures to
violence in childhood, including exposure to multiple forms of
violence, with young men's
perpetration of
intimate partner violence (IPV) in Malawi.
Methods
We analyzed data from 450 ever-partnered 18- to 24-year-old men interviewed in the Malawi Violence Against Children and Young Woman Survey, a nationally representative, multistage cluster survey conducted in 2013. We estimated the weighted prevalence for perpetration of physical and/or sexual IPV and retrospective reporting of experiences of violence in childhood and examined the associations between childhood experiences of violence and perpetration of IPV using logistic regression.
Results
Among young men in Malawi, lifetime prevalence for perpetration of sexual IPV (24%) was higher than for perpetration of physical IPV (9%). In logistic regression analyses, the adjusted odds ratios for perpetration of sexual IPV increased in a statistically significant gradient fashion, from 1.2 to 1.4 to 3.7 to 4.3 for young men with exposures to one, two, three, and four or more forms of violence in childhood, respectively.
Conclusions
Among young men in Malawi, exposure to violence in childhood is associated with an increased odds of perpetrating IPV, highlighting the need for programs and policies aimed at interrupting the intergenerational transmission of violence.
