Determinants of Intimate Partner Sexual Violence Against Women in Turkiye According to Socioeconomic and Sociodemographic Factors

The main objective of this study is to reveal the effects of the sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors that cause women between the ages of 15-59 to be exposed to sexual violence by their husbands or partners in Turkiye. This study uses the dataset from the National Research on Domestic Violence Against Women in Turkiye performed by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat, 2008 and 2014). The 2008 survey interviewed 17,168 households and 12,795 women, while the 2014 survey interviewed 11,247 households and 7,462 women. This study uses the chi-square independence test and multivariate logistic regression method to examine the factors affecting sexual violence. The dependent variable was determined as exposure to sexual violence. Sociodemographic and socioeconomic variables such as education, age group, region, and personal income were used as the independent variables. According to the results, educated women are less frequently exposed to sexual abuse. In addition, women with their own personal income are less exposed to sexual abuse than women who do not have their own personal income. As the education level of the partners of women who’ve been exposed to sexual violence increases, these partners become less prone to sexual violence; whereas partners with higher frequencies of alcohol use are more likely to commit sexual violence. Sexual violence against women was observed to have decreased between 2008-2014 in Turkiye. Sexual violence results in extremely serious consequences such as severe physical injury and death by murder or suicide and is less often the subject of research compared to other types of violence against women. Thus, further scientific research is required to better understand and address sexual violence against women.