Socio-Cultural Factors Consistently Exposing Women to Intimate Partner Violence in Three Selected African Countries

Several studies on the prevalence, forms and associated factors of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) from different countries of the world have provided quite interesting results and reports on the IPV phenomenon. However, it is difficult to compare such results based on differences in methodologies and study rationale. To this end, knowledge of the cross-cultural dimensions of the IPV phenomenon from comparative and/or comparable studies using unified methodology has increasingly become desired. Such is necessary in drafting a somewhat unified approach and intervention design aimed at understanding, explaining, predicting and forestalling the increasingly persistent transcultural prevalence of IPV. This study therefore seeks to bridge this lacuna in knowledge by investigating the common main and specific factors associated with exposing and protecting sub-Saharan African women from IPV beyond national boundaries in three former British West African Countries – the Gambia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The study is quantitative in design and borrows secondary data from nationally representative DHS domestic violence modules. Five multiple binary logistics regression models with results presented in ORs and aORs reveal certain individual, cultural and structural factors are consistent in their association with IPVAW beyond national boundaries. Thus, this paper extends our knowledge on the IPV phenomenon and recommends probable transnational ways of mitigating instances of IPVAW in Africa, and possibly elsewhere. Keyword: Intimate Partner Violence Against Women, Consistent Factors, Gambia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sub-Saharan Africa