Access to sanitation and violence against women: evidence from Demographic Health Survey (DHS) data in Kenya

Abstract

Violence against women (VAW) is a serious public health and human rights concern. Literature suggests sanitation conditions in developing countries may be potential neighborhood-level risk factors contributing to VAW, and that this association may be more important in highly socially disorganized neighborhoods. This study analyzed 2008 Kenya Demographic Health Survey’s data and found women who primarily practice open defecation (OD), particularly in disorganized communities, had higher odds of experiencing recent non-partner violence. This study provides quantitative evidence of an association between sanitation and VAW that is attracting increasing attention in media and scholarly literature throughout Kenya and other developing countries.

Keywords:

• violence against women
• sanitation
• developing countries
• Kenya
• Demographic and Health Survey (DHS)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Prior to running the sensitivity analysis, the residential stability, diversity, and wealth variables were standardized. In order to study the patterns of association (magnitude, direction, and significance) between open defecation and women’s experiences of recent non-partner violence, fully interacted models (identical to the regressions run in Models 2 and 3) were analyzed at different levels of social disorganization. Different levels of disorganization were calculated by combining different thresholds (± 0.25, 0.5, 1, and 2 standard deviations from the mean) for residential stability, wealth, and diversity.