Services Research

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articledefined women violence as “any act of gender-based vio-lence that results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty whether occurring in public or private life [1]. health, but also has adverse consequences for other as-pects of women’s health and wellbeing and for the survival and wellbeing of children [1]. Home is supposed to be a secure environment, yet in many societies in sub-Saharan Africa, many women ex-perience violence in diverse forms – physical, emotional psychological and sexual [7]. Much of this violence is * Correspondence: bamiwuye@oauife.edu.ng1Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, NigeriaThe United Nations General Assembly’s 1993 DeclarationIntroduction: Despite the threat of violence to the health and rights of women yet, for many years, there has been a dearth of nationally comparable data on domestic violence in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines whether women from poor households are more likely to experience violence from husband/partner than other women who are from middle or rich households. Method: Data for the study are derived from most recent DHS surveys of ever-married women age 15-49 in Cameroun(3,691), Kenya(4,336), Mozambique(5610), Nigeria (16,763), Zambia(3,010) and Zimbabwe(5,016) who participated in the questions on Domestic Violence Module. Bivariate analysis and Binary Logistic Regression Analysis are used to explore the linkage between household poverty-wealth and spousal violence while simultaneously controlling for confounding variables. Results: The overall prevalence of any form of violence (physical, sexual or emotional) ranges from 30.5 % in Nigeri