Sarah, a 20-year-old housewife, gets beaten up every time by her husband for not being able to cook, and she totally agrees that he has the right to do that. And there are many others like her!

Violence against Women from their partners is one of the most widespread public issues affecting the individual, family, and community. As not only does it affect the women’s mental and physical health, but also that of their children, relatives, and neighbors. Thus, it is important to tackle the reasons behind it.

Shockingly, the proportion of women who believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife is high and increasing worldwide. For instance, an average of 53% of women and girls worldwide believe that men are justified to beat their wives. The highest concentration of this positive attitude towards domestic violence is in Africa, south Asia, and west south America.. Use the graph below to discover the percentages of each country. Tap anywhere to view the top countries (countries with highest percentages of women justifying the husbands’ violence).

Women believe it is justifiable for men to beat up his wife when she:

• Argues with him
• Refuses to have sex
• Burns the food
• Goes out without telling him
• Neglects the children.

Among these reasons, neglecting the children constitutes the top reason of justifying domestic violence with 26.32%.

But why is this the case?

Early marriage highly impacts this mindset. Child marriage limits the young girls’ power, resources, knowledge, social support, freedom, and independence. Young married girls have little power in relation to their husbands and in-laws, which makes them believe that a man is sometimes justified to beat his wife. For instance, Girls who marry early are more likely to believe that a man is justified in beating his wife than women who marry later. As seen in the figure below, there is a very strong correlation between the number of women who were married early and number of women who believed that husbands are justified in beating their wives throughout the years.

Also, a negative correlation with the total governmental expenditure on education is shown, implying that government can play a huge role in limiting this mindset, through increasing their expenditure on education as it has shown a great influence on the proportions of early marriage, and women believing it is okay to beat up wives. For this reason, laws should be released to prohibit early marriage and motivate girls to get higher educational attainment.

Having equality in educational attainment among genders will empower women and stop them from accepting to get beaten up by their husbands. This is related to goal 4 of the UN, which considers eliminating the disparities among genders to ensure equal access for all to affordable and quality technical, vocational education among all levels: tertiary, primary secondary and higher education.

Finally, Education is essential, but allowing young people’s voices to be heard is also crucial to empowering the next generation. If women feel heard, they will feel more empowered and thus they are more likely to instigate change.