Victim Blaming: A silent perpetuator of domestic violence in Indian households

Abstract Book of the 8th Global Conference on Women's Studies

Year: 2026

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Victim Blaming: A silent perpetuator of domestic violence in Indian households

Suparna Das

ABSTRACT:

The recent National Crime Records Bureau data reports that domestic violence holds the largest share of 31% among all types of crime against women. As per the last three rounds of National Family and Health Survey (NFHS), one-third of the married women reported domestic violence, and surprisingly, as large as, even larger than men, 50% (declined to 45% in NFHS5) women justified wife-beating for various reasons. Women often continue to suffer domestic violence without reporting it either to save the marriage or reporting is difficult when the victim lives with the offender(s). Domestic violence is the most prevalent but least reported crime among all and the published statistics are only the tip of the iceberg. Though it is a genuine concern as the data provide widespread evidence of victim-blaming attitude among women in case of domestic violence, the research on how women’s supportive attitude towards domestic violence impacts the prevalence of violence is not adequately found in the Indian context. Thus, using the instrumental variable probability regression models on the NFHS-5 data, this research examines the victim-blaming attitudes among women, and to fill the gap in the literature, it explores the association between women’s experience of domestic violence and justification of wife-beating. The results show that women, even educated and working women, predominantly support wife-beating for neglecting household duties and disobeying husband and in-laws’ authority. Further, a strong significant association between domestic violence and women’s justification for wife-beating implies that women who justify wife-beating for various circumstances have significantly higher chances to face domestic violence in their own marital life.

Keywords: Domestic Violence, Wife-Beating, Intimate Partner Violence, Justifying Domestic Violence, Victim-Blaming