Domestic violence and its effect on women`s status :a case study on married women in the Tamale Metropolis, Ghana

Abstract

Wife battery is a serious human right issue with different patterns and trends but not discussed openly. It is widespread and traverses economic, cultural, tribal, educational and professional background of women in Ghana. The constraints under which those women live ensure their oppression and place them in a lurch. This study examines the effects of the problem to provide data that may be useful to policy makers and social workers in the country. To ensure a comprehensive analysis of data, a qualitative method was used. Specifically, a case study approach was used for it is capable of examining simple or complex phenomenon, with units of analysis varying from individuals to large societies. The choice of women as informants was based on the circumstance surrounding their social and economic conditions after battery which is largely ignored. The forms of battery that emerged from the interviews with the 20 respondents include communal battery, digital battery, proxy and contract battery. The study dismisses the assertion that battery is a problem of poverty or illiteracy as factors found to trigger battery included suspicion of promiscuity, infertility, traditional beliefs and domestication of women. This study reveals widespread divorce, single parenthood, declining parental responsibility and breakdown in business networks as devastating effects on those women. Consequently, the women experience greater socioeconomic insecurity, emotional trauma and health complications in the area. The study suggests intensive public education on the dangers of wife battery. Besides, the authorities should be made to see the need to modify some traditional norms that justify wife battery. The costs of battery are evidence that it undermines socioeconomic development and threatens the welfare and survival of women as it pervades their physical health and emotional fabric.