Violence against refugee women along the Thai-Burma border

Abstract

Objective: To document the prevalence and characteristics of conflict victimization and its associations with past-year intimate partner violence (IPV) among refugee women affected by the protracted conflict in Burma (Myanmar).

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 861 women living in 3 refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border from February to April 2008. Descriptive statistics were generated regarding experiences of conflict victimization and generalized estimating equations were used to determine the odds of reporting past-year IPV.

Results: In all, 9.6% of partnered women reported conflict victimization and 7.9% of women reported experiencing past-year IPV. After accounting for demographic variables, women who experienced conflict victimization were 5.9 times more likely to report past-year IPV than women who had not experienced conflict victimization (95% confidence interval, 5.0-6.9).

Conclusion: Given the strong association uncovered in the present study, interventions to reduce the negative effects of conflict victimization should incorporate other forms of violence prevention, including IPV. Future longitudinal research is needed to discern pathways through which these experiences are related.