Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 May 5;21(1):188.
doi: 10.1186/s12905-021-01333-1.

Determination of the factors affecting sexual violence against women in Turkey: a population-based analysis

Ömer Alkan  1 , Hasan Hüseyin Tekmanlı  2
Affiliations

Determination of the factors affecting sexual violence against women in Turkey: a population-based analysis

Ömer Alkan et al. BMC Womens Health. .

Abstract

Background: Sexual violence is one of the most investigated types of violence by national and international decision makers. The purpose of this study was to detect the factors that affect sexual violence against women in Turkey.

Methods: In this study, a cross-sectional data set was employed from the survey titled the National Research on Domestic Violence against Women in Turkey, which was conducted by the Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies. Binary logistic and probit regression analyses were used to determine the factors influential in women's exposure to sexual violence.

Results: The findings obtained from the analyses indicated that women's exposure to sexual violence was influenced by a variety of factors including region, age, level of education, employment status, health condition, marital status, number of children as well as exposure to physical, economic, and verbal abuse. In addition, it was determined that the level of education, employment status, drug use, infidelity and other variables related to the husband/partner of the women who participated in the survey affected the women's exposure to sexual violence.

Conclusion: There remains a higher probability of exposure to sexual violence among women residing in rural and less developed regions. A decrease in the women's level of education increased their probability of exposure to sexual violence. An increase in the women's age and an increase in the level of education of the women's husbands/partners lowered the probability of their exposure to sexual violence. There was a higher probability of exposure to sexual violence among women who had experienced physical, economic, and verbal abuse.

Keywords: Domestic violence; Intimate partner violence; Sexual violence; Turkey; Violence against women.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no competing interests to report. Additionally, the authors had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

References

    1. Adjah ESO, Agbemafle I. Determinants of domestic violence against women in Ghana. BMC Public Health. 2016;16(1):1–9. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Akar T, Aksakal FN, Demirel B, Durukan E, Özkan S. The prevalence of domestic violence against women among a group woman: Ankara, Turkey. J Fam Violence. 2010;25(5):449–460. doi: 10.1007/s10896-010-9306-8. - DOI
    1. Alan Dikmen H, Cankaya S. Associations between sexual violence and women’s sexual attitudes, sexual self-consciousness, and sexual self-efficacy. J Interpers Violence. 2020 doi: 10.1177/0886260519897339. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alkan Ö, Oktay E, Genç A. Determination of factors affecting the children's internet use. Am Int J Contemp Res. 2015;5(6):57–67.
    1. Alkan Ö, Oktay E, Ünver Ş, Gerni E. Determination of factors affecting the financial literacy of university students in Eastern Anatolia using ordered regression models. Asian Econ Financ Rev. 2020;10(5):536–546. doi: 10.18488/journal.aefr.2020.105.536.546. - DOI