The Sins and the Punishments: Towards the Incidence of Domestic Violence and Its Extenuating Circumstances in Ghana (Published)
This paper was carried out to examine the prevalence of domestic violence and possible extenuating circumstance in the Kintampo South District of Ghana. The target population of the study was predominately women. 200 of these women were selected purposively to participate in the study. Structured questionnaires were used to gather primary data. Secondary data were obtained from academic research data bases including EBSCO, Google Scholar and Cross-Ref. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the field data. Respondent’s participations were purely voluntary. The study revealed forms of domestic violence as follows: Rape, Torture, Molestation, Battering, Forced Labor, and feticide. Extenuating Circumstances were discovered as follows: Medical response, Counseling Law enforcement, Public education, Media blitz, Role of Gender Activists and psychologist. Also it was found that there is a significant (X2 = 98.19, df = 8, p-value < 0.05) association between women educational level and rape experience. Moreover, the study revealed a significant association between women age and rape experience. Again, there is a significant (df = 16, X2 = 248.14, p-value<0.05) association between women educational level and force marriage experience. There is a significant association between women age and forced marriage experience. It is concluded that nobody should ever think that the blight of domestic violence is over neither in Ghana nor many other developing countries. The domestic violence scourger still lives. The proposed extenuating measures should be taken serious by policy maker to avert the situation. Development psychologists are also needed to aid behavioural studies.
Keywords: Domestic Violence, Extenuating Circumstances, Ghana, Incidence, Women