p considerably if slapping was also included in the study,'' explains Geeta Rao Gupta, director of the US-based International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) which conducted this survey. The findings of the survey, released at an international conference here over the week-end, was discussed threadbare by the experts attending it. The survey, according to the ICRW, covered the seven cities of Delhi, Lucknow, Vellore, Bhopal, Nagpur, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram. It showed little variation in the prevalence of domestic violence within the different regions and different population groups. The study shows a high incidence of psychological abuse with 43.5 per cent of the women experiencing at least one incident of psychologically violent behaviour like insults, threats, inducement of fear or abandonment. Significantly, women living in nuclear families were found to be more vulnerable to violence than those living in large families. According to the survey only 23 per cent of those living in joint families became victims of violence. Though the study did not focus on this aspect, the data collected showed that joint families perhaps did act as a deterrent. The findings also shatters the myth that working women are less prone to such violent acts. In fact, the study shows that more working women are beaten up at home. Women going out to work apparently expose themselves to greater risk of violence, more so by their unemployed husbands, says the report. The study further reveals that more than 54 per cent of the surveyed women who reported injuries had regular employment. Nearly 90 per cent of the women who reported an injury in the last year were working women. Despite all this suffering, barely two per cent of the victims went to the police to report these instances of torture; only 62 women out of the total 10,000 sought help from the police and only 16 got some relief. And yet, most of the women - 95 per cent of those surveyed - cho...
