BGI Consulting has completed a research on violence against women in family. The occurrence of family violence against women was analysed according to various violence forms, forms of relations between the abuser and the victim. The condition family violence victims was also evaluated as well as comparative analysis with the previous researches on the issue was carried out.
The main data source for the research was a representative survey. One thousand 18 to 74 year Lithuanian women were interviewed during October 2008.
Significant attention was payed to methods applied in foreign countries experienced in research of the topic (UK, USA, Australia, Canada, etc.). The research field is specific and personally sensitive, therefore special attention to foreign practices was payed to form questionaire and develop other research tools.
The survey results have revealed that 15 percent of married women experienced violence in family recently. Almost 2/3 of them experienced repeating violent actions every month or more often. More than half of women do not treat experienced abusive-nature actions (especially of psychological nature) as violence. This fact shows that our society faces a „violence tolerance“ problem.
Violence transmition analysis has revealed that abusive behaviour is transmitted across generations. Data shows that men who have seen father‘s violence against their mother use violence in their created family three times more often than those who has no such experience. Similarly, women who have seen violence in their parental family twice more often become victims in their marital family. These tendencies show that violence in family is harmful not only directly to the victim but to other family members as well.
Violence perception and transferability phenomena were analysed for the first time in Lithuania. The methodology applied in this research allows to evaluate a recent scope of violence against women in family. This fact allow to observe situation changes in future researches. This method directly contributes to evaluation and improvement of the efectiveness of social policy measures.