Conjugal rights used to ‘punish’ spouses

• New form of abuse replaces physical violence as couples refuse to share a bed

You may no longer be hearing screams and wails as your neighbour batters his wife. But the couple next door may be experiencing the worst form of gender-based violence.

This is because perpetrators of domestic violence have adopted a new way to punish their victims — denying them sex.

It is now official; husbands and wives are increasingly refusing to share a bed with their spouses in the new form of gender-based violence.

Most notorious

In fact, denial of sex and other forms of psychological abuse, have overtaken physical violence as crime number one in households, according to a new report released by the Federation of Kenya Women Lawyers (Fida-K), on Friday.

According to this year’s study of Gender-based Domestic Violence in Kenya that covered the most notorious provinces — Coast, Nairobi, Nyanza and Western — one in every two people experiencing Intimate Partner Violence is denied conjugal rights.

This means gender-based violence is no longer a male affair. For lack of physical strength, women are fighting back domestic violence in the bedroom.

But men, who will rarely deny their partners sex, result to the fist, making physical violence the second most common form of violence.

Unfaithfulness, or suspicion of it, also tops the list of the worst crimes against a spouse with four out of ten victims having been accused of the vice before the actual abuse.

Other circumstances leading to domestic violence are money or alcohol related.

The report, done by University of Nairobi researchers, Prof Patricia Kameri- Mbote and Mr Kamau Mubuu on behalf of Fida, shows that home-based violence is changing in tandem with modernisation.

Coast province leads in the number of abuse cases, followed by Western, Nairobi and Nyanza in that order. They scored 33, 29, 22 and 16 per cent.

At 80 per cent, male partners lead as perpetrators, with half the cases taking place under the influence of alcohol.

Police are least trusted to handle domestic violence cases with only 9 per cent of the respondents saying they would actually report the case in a police station while 88 per cent said they would report abuses to village elders or the local chief.

Gender experts say this local administration route is cheaper, takes the least time possible and the perpetrators are likely to face some action.