Violence Against Women in Hong Kong: Results of the International Violence Against Women Survey.

593646

research-article2015

VAWXXX10.1177/1077801215593646Violence Against WomenBouhours and Broadhurst

Article

Violence Against Women in Hong Kong: Results of the International Violence Against Women Survey

Violence Against Women 2015, Vol. 21(11) 1311–1329 © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1077801215593646 vaw.sagepub.com

Brigitte Bouhours1 and Roderic Broadhurst1

Abstract In Hong Kong, nearly 1,300 women participated by telephone in the International Violence Against Women Survey in 2006. One in five respondents had experienced violence since age 16. Sexual violence (13.4%) was more frequent than physical violence (11.7%). Women were more likely to be abused by men they knew (13.5%) than by strangers (8%). Compared with other surveyed countries, Hong Kong recorded among the lowest rates of violence by both intimate partners and nonpartners. These results suggest that cultural influences linked to the interaction of modernization and some protective factors found in the adherence to traditional Chinese values are relevant. Keywords violence against women, crime victims survey, intimate partner violence, Hong Kong and China

Introduction The concept of violence against women (VAW) as a specific category of violence is relatively recent and was defined in the 1993 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women as . . . any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life. 1Australian

National University, Canberra, Australia

Corresponding Author: Brigitte Bouhours, Regulatory Institutions Network (REGNET), Australian National University, Coombs ext., Bldg. 8, Fellows Road, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia. Emails: [email protected]

Downloaded from vaw.sagepub.com at Duke University Libraries on November 18, 2015

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Violence Against Women 21(11)

This definition emphasizes that such violence is gender-based in nature; that is, it is intentionally targeted at women because of their sex or social role, and is overwhelmingly committed by men against women. This perspective has broadened the scope of the concept of VAW from “private” violence committed within the home or by a stranger to include sexual violations and rape during armed conflicts and by members of state organizations such as police and the military. It has also highlighted socially condoned harmful practices against women such as genital mutilation, forced marriages, and honor killings, which have been tolerated by some states. Finally, it places the issue of VAW in the context of societal discrimination and inequalities that perpetrate women’s vulnerability to violence. Victim advocates, researchers, and policy makers generally agree that VAW is widespread throughout the world and represents a major human rights and public health problem (Alhabib, Nur, & Jones, 2010). However, there are large variations in the prevalence of VAW in various societies and cultures. Ethnographers have identified small peasant and tribal societies where family violence (Levinson, 1989) or rape (Sanday, 1981) was rare. More recent large-scale studies have also found similar differences. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence conducted between 2000 and 2003 spanned 10 countries and used a standard questionnaire. It reported lifetime rates of physical and sexual violence by an intimate partner ranging from 15% in Japan to 71% in Ethiopia (Garcia-Moreno, Jansen, Ellsbert, Heise, & Watts, 2006). The authors argued that these large variations between settings suggest that action can be taken to reduce the risk of violence. The International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) has so far been conducted in 12 countries. Such surveys are important to uncover the extent of the problem and identify some risks and vulnerabilities. In time they also provide a tool to assess change and measure the impact of policies. This article reports on the 2006 Hong Kong component of the IVAWS. In the next section, we discuss the development and benefits of the IVAWS before presenting a brief overview of the situation in Hong Kong and describing the IVAWS instrument and methodology. We summarize our results starting with the overall prevalence of physical and sexual violence, and then we focus on violence by different perpetrators to attempt to tease out some of the predictors of victimization. We describe the response to the violence (reporting to police) before comparing our prevalence results in Hong Kong with those of other countries surveyed. Finally, we analyze these results in light of the particularities of the Hong Kong setting and discuss the comparatively low prevalence of VAW in Hong Kong. We conclude by highlighting some avenues for further research.

Measuring VAW Estimating the extent of VAW and any comparative differences across the world is difficult. For example, legal definitions and cultural interpretations of what constitutes violence differ between countries. Intra-familial violence often occurs behind closed doors, and many victims do not report to police or seek support from social services or


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victims’ organizations. In addition, in many countries there is no official data collection or it is incomplete or inconsistent, and when such records are kept, the sex of the victim is not always recorded and family violence is usually only counted within the broader category of assault. One approach to measuring such violence is to conduct victimization surveys that ask a large random sample of the population about their experiences of victimization during a specific time frame. Victimization surveys have been conducted since the late 1970s in many countries but mostly in industrialized Western countries. Internationally, five sweeps of the United Nations International Crime Victims Survey (UNICVS) have measured crime victimization in 78 countries from the developed and developing world and/or their main cities (van Dijk, van Kesteren, & Smit, 2007). Victimization surveys are able to uncover the “dark figure” of crime, that is, the amount of crime that is not known to the police and therefore not recorded in official statistics, and they provide relatively accurate estimates of the prevalence of victimization, reporting behavior, and responses to victimization in the general population. However, they have limited utility to address the question of VAW, particularly violence by men known to the victims. Some of these limitations include the broad scope of such surveys, which does not allow enough time to address sensitively and in depth the complex issues related to violence, particularly domestic violence; the ways in which violence is defined and the specific wording of the questions, especially in translation; and the lack of gender selection and specific training of interviewers. To address these limitations, specialized surveys were developed at the national level (e.g., Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1996; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). These specialized surveys differ from general population surveys in a number of ways: They focus only on VAW by men; they are conducted exclusively by female interviewers who have received specific training about the ways in which women are affected by violence and how they may react to some of the survey questions, and who try to ensure that the interview is as private as possible; questions are worded in terms of behaviors and acts of violence rather than offenses1; and finally, detailed questions on perpetrators are included to ensure that all violence by unknown and known men including intimate partners is reported. At the international level, the development of the IVAWS began in 1997. It was led by the European Institute for Crime Prevention (HEUNI), which is affiliated with the United Nations, the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), and Statistics Canada. The aim was to design a standardized instrument and methodology that could be implemented in developed and developing countries to estimate the prevalence of VAW, as well as the level of reporting and help-seeking behavior, and the response of the criminal justice system. The IVAWS was piloted in 13 countries in 2001 and 2002, and full implementation started in 2003. A manual detailing the steps to follow for carrying out the IVAWS was produced, and so far, the IVAWS has been conducted in 12 countries.2 A European Union–wide survey using a similar protocol to the IVAWS has recently been implemented by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (EUAFR, 2014).


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Women in Hong Kong The Chinese culture has been influenced by Confucianism, which assigned to women a submissive role mostly limited to the domestic sphere. However, Pearson and Leung (1995) have warned that “it is tempting to see the prejudice and discrimination against women in modern Hong Kong as remnants of traditional patriarchal Chinese culture” (p. 5). A variety of cultural, social, and economic factors have influenced Hong Kong women’s current position. For 150 years, Hong Kong was a British colony, which has developed a successful industrial capitalist economy. In recent decades, a women’s movement has emerged, which helped bring about significant reforms. A range of socioeconomic indicators presents a picture of women in Hong Kong similar to that of women in other industrialized countries. In the last half century, women have generally gained in terms of educational achievements, workforce participation, and entry into professional fields; however, on aggregate, the wages of female workers remain lower than those of male workers (Broadhurst, Bouhours, & Bacon-Shone, 2012). 3 Women joining the workforce en masse has led to a redefinition of their role within the family through a merging of traditional Chinese and modern Western influences (H. Chan & Lee, 1995; Salaff, 1981). The nuclear family has become the dominant form but traditional and ethical norms reflecting the Confucian tenet of filial piety remain prevalent. Patriarchal authority has declined, and the monetary contribution wives and daughters make to the family has earned them a greater say in decision making. The Hong Kong government keeps easily accessible and relatively complete statistical records on victimization through both recorded crime and social services data. These statistics have shown a rise in the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) over the last 25 years: The rate of cases recorded by police jumped from 0.15 per 1,000 females aged 16 and above in 1986 to 0.65 in 2010; the rate of battered spouses recorded by the Social Welfare Department (SWD) went from 0.56 in 2000 to 0.73 in 2010 (Broadhurst et al., 2012). However, it is difficult to say whether this rise reflects an increase in the prevalence of violence or changing attitudes and a greater willingness to report such cases, similar to what had occurred in Western countries in the 1970s and 1980s. As the role, status, and social involvement of women have improved, acceptance and tolerance of violence have decreased, and women are more willing to report abuse. In their review of the literature on domestic violence in China, Tang and Lai (2008) found few independent studies conducted in Hong Kong, and only two that used a randomized population sample. From her 1996 sample of N = 1,132 female respondents aged 18 and above who were in a current or previous cohabiting relationship with a male partner, Tang (1999b) reported that 10% of male partners had physically abused their female partners in the last year. Although this item was not counted as physical but as verbal abuse, 5% of women said that their partners had threatened to hit them.4 In a more recent study conducted in 2003-2004 with more than 2,000 women, 10.1% reported experiencing physical violence by their spouse in their lifetime and 5.7% during the previous 12 months (K. L. Chan, 2005). The



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review found that risk factors for domestic violence in Chinese societies were similar to those found in Western nations and included low socioeconomic status, status or power disparity between partners, marital conflicts, traditional gender– role beliefs and use of alcohol or illicit drugs by offenders and/or victims (Tang & Lai, 2008).

Methodology of the Hong Kong IVAWS The standard IVAWS questionnaire was used in Hong Kong but most of the optional sections (e.g., childhood victimization) and some items not relevant in the Hong Kong context (e.g., on dowry payment) were excluded (the full instrument is presented in Johnson, Ollus, & Nevala, 2008, Appendix IV). We were concerned that because of the hectic work schedule of many people in Hong Kong and “time tight” culture, many respondents would not complete the survey if it took too long. The questionnaire included 143 pre-coded questions organized in seven sections: 1. Respondent’s demographics including current and previous relationships, and household income. 2. Experiences of male violence for seven types of physical violence and five types of sexual violence and including frequency of the abuse and relationship to perpetrator. 3. Victimization by non-partner recorded details of the most recent incident of victimization by a man other than an intimate partner (e.g., friend, stranger), including type and severity of the abuse, injuries, reporting to police, and perceptions of the seriousness of the incident. 4. Victimization by partner followed a similar format to (3) focusing on abuse by a current or former intimate partner (e.g., husband, boyfriend). 5. Characteristics of violent former intimate partner were asked only to women who reported victimization by a former partner; questions covered the ex-partner’s demographics, income, drinking habits, violent behavior outside of the family, and use of emotionally abusive and controlling behaviors. 6. Characteristics of current partner were asked to all women who were currently in a relationship and followed a format similar to (5). 7. Responses to the violence included whether victims reported the abuse to the police and the police response, whether victims sought help from victim support organizations, and whether they talked about the abuse to friends or family members. Experiences of violence were measured through questions that described specific acts of physical or sexual violence, which produce more valid and reliable results than using general terms such as “assault” or “violence.” Questions about physical violence ranged from threats to harm that were serious enough to cause fear, to being injured with a weapon; sexual violence included unwanted sexual touching and forced intercourse. The victimization screeners covered victimization during the adult lifetime


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(i.e., since age 16) by any man. Women who answered that they had been victimized were then asked precisely when it happened and who the perpetrator was. Interviews for the Hong Kong IVAWS were conducted by telephone between December 2005 and March 2006 by female interviewers from the University of Hong Kong Criminology and Social Sciences Research Centre. Instructions and questions were read in the respondent’s spoken language, that is, English, Cantonese, or Mandarin. All interviewers went through the training module of the IVAWS, which gave them an understanding of how violence may affect women and how to respond to the potential emotional trauma caused by responding to the survey (for details on training, see Johnson et al., 2008). Throughout the survey period, interviewers were supported with frequent debriefings and counseling. The sample was selected by random dialing of numbers from the Hong Kong 2005 English residential telephone directory, and in each contacted household, the female respondent aged 18 years and above whose birthday came first after the survey date was selected. The survey was introduced as relating to women’s personal safety rather than VAW. Appointments were made with eligible women who were interested in participating but were not able to do the survey straightaway. The response rate was 45%5 and yielded a sample of 1,297 female participants. Younger women were underrepresented in the sample, and weights were applied to ensure that the sample was representative of the Hong Kong population in terms of age. Respondents were aged between 18-78 years with a mean weighted age of 41.4 years (Table 1). Two thirds were married or living with a male partner. About half of the women in the sample were gainfully employed, just more than one third (34.7%) did not have their own income, and the rest had an income from various sources other than paid work. The net household monthly income of about 60% of the participants was equal to or above the population monthly median income (HK$16,000), which suggests that higher income households were slightly overrepresented in the sample. More than two thirds of respondents had completed secondary school, and about 30% had a tertiary qualification.

Results Prevalence of Violence Just less than 20% of women (N = 258) in the Hong Kong sample had experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence by a man in their adult lifetime (i.e., since age 16). Respondents were more likely to mention sexual violence (13.4%) than physical violence (11.7%), which was in contrast to other surveyed countries, where physical violence was the most frequent. In the past 12 months, 3.7% of women (N = 48) had experienced violence: 1.9% reported at least one instance of physical violence, and 2.4% at least one incident of sexual victimization. Women were at greater risks of violence from men they knew than from strangers: Over their adult lifetime, 13.5% of respondents had experienced violence by a man known to them, including intimate partner, family member, friend, or acquaintance but


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Bouhours and Broadhurst Table 1. Characteristics of the IVAWS Sample, Hong Kong 2006 (N = 1,297). Characteristic

% Unweighted

% Weighted

Difference

12.0 17.2 29.7 27.9 13.2 41.0

13.4 20.9 24.8 21.3 19.6 41.4

+1.4 +3.7 −4.9 −6.6 +6.4 +0.4

69.8 9.1 21.1

66.2 10.0 23.8

−3.6 +0.9 +2.7

14.0 21.1 38.2 26.7

14.7 18.8 36.8 29.7

+0.7 −2.3 −1.4 +3.0

65.8 34.2

65.3 34.7

−0.5 +0.5

Age in years 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+ Mean age (years) Relationship status Married/de facto Dating Single/separated/not living with husband Highest level of education Primary Junior secondary Senior secondary/matriculation Tertiary Employment/income Has own income from work or other sources No personal income Note. IVAWS = International Violence Against Women Survey.

only 8% by a stranger (Figure 1). Violence by known men was as likely to involve physical as sexual violence (8.3% and 7.9%, respectively), but physical violence by strangers was less frequently reported than sexual violence (2.4% and 6.3%, respectively). Less than 10% of respondents had been abused by a former intimate partner and 5.3% by their current partner. Regardless of perpetrators, actual physical violence was reported more frequently than threats to harm, but threats often accompanied actual violence. The forms of physical violence most frequently mentioned included slapping, kicking, hitting with a fist or with something, pushing, and grabbing. One percent of women reported having been threatened with a knife or other weapons by a stranger, and this was most likely linked to muggings or robberies. The use of weapons by men other than strangers was rare. The most common form of sexual victimization was unwanted sexual touching.

Violence by Current Intimate Partner At the time of the IVAWS, 987 respondents indicated that they were involved in an intimate relationship with a male partner: 83.9% were married, 2.9% were living with a man but not married, and 13.1% were dating.6 Just more than 5% of these women


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Figure 1. Violence by current intimate partner and non-partners in adult lifetime.

Note. Violence by non-partners based on N = 1,297 women; violence by current partner based on N = 987 women currently in an intimate relationship.

(N = 52) said that they had experienced violence by this partner in their adult lifetime, and 1.6% (N = 16) in the past 12 months with comparable levels of physical and sexual violence (3.3 % and 2.9%, respectively, in the lifetime, and 0.7% and 1.1% in the past year). More than one third (36%) of the respondents who had been abused were injured, and one in five (22%) felt that their life was in danger during the most recent incident. In addition to their experiences of violence, all respondents were asked about their partner’s use of controlling and emotionally abusive behaviors, drinking habits, and tendency to become violent outside of the family. Controlling behaviors included insisting on knowing where and with whom she is, limiting contact with family and friends, and suspicion of infidelity; emotionally abusive behaviors consisted of namecalling and put downs, damaging or destroying property, threats of harm to others, and threats of suicide. Twelve questions—five related to controlling and seven related to emotionally abusive behaviors—were included in the Hong Kong questionnaire with answers ranging from “never” to “all the time” on a 4-point scale. Controlling behaviors were reported more frequently than emotionally abusive behaviors: Nearly 44% of respondents said that their partner had used one or more controlling behavior, but only 22% mentioned the use of emotionally abusive behaviors. Of the 987 currently partnered women, around one in four reported that at least



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sometimes their partner insisted on knowing their whereabouts (27.2%), or that he got angry if they spoke to other men (25.7%). Just more than 10% of male partners tried to limit respondents’ contact with their family and friends. One in five women said that their partner insulted or put them down at least sometimes (19.4%). Less than 4% of respondents had experienced other emotionally abusive behaviors some time in their current relationship. Predictors of IPV. As well as an estimation of the prevalence of violence, the IVAWS provides a tool for developing hypotheses and testing theories about VAW. A series of statistical analyses such as t tests and chi-squares revealed six statistically significant risk factors for IPV: younger age of both female and male partners, violence by previous male partner, current partner’s excessive drinking, current partner’s use of controlling or emotionally abusive behaviors, and current partner’s violence outside of the family. Household income and education did not have an impact on the risk of IPV. To estimate the relative impact of these factors, we conducted a binary logistic regression using victimization (physical and sexual) or not by the current partner over the lifetime as the dichotomous dependent variable. Based on our bivariate analyses and the literature on domestic violence, three sets of variables were included in the regression: (1) Characteristics of the female partner: age: in years, continuous variable from younger to older; violence by previous intimate partner: 1 = yes, and 0 = no. (2) Characteristics of the male partner: male partner’s use of controlling behaviors toward female partner: 1 = all the time, frequently, or sometimes, and 0 = never; male partner’s use of emotionally abusive behaviors toward female partner: 1 = all the times, frequently, or sometimes, and 0 = never; male partner’s drinking habits: 1 = gets drunk twice a month or more, and 0 = never drinks, never gets drunk, or gets drunk twice a year or less; and male partner’s violent behavior outside of family: 1 = yes and 0 = no.7 (3) Characteristics of the relationship: marital status: 1 = married and 0 = not married but living together or dating. Table 2 displays the results of the logistic regression. Two predictors were significant and both were associated with characteristics of the male partners: the use of emotionally abusive behaviors and being violent outside of the family. The regression indicates that when a woman’s intimate partner engaged in emotionally abusive behaviors, her risk of experiencing violence by this partner increased by a factor of 5.5; if a woman’s intimate partner was violent outside the family, she was nearly 5 times more at risk of experiencing violence from him. Two other variables about the male partner’s drinking habits and his use of controlling behaviors approached statistical significance (p = .06). This suggests that women were at a higher risk of violence if their partner got drunk twice a month or more often; and if their partner attempted to control them. The woman’s history of abuse by former partners and the type and length of the relationship were not significantly related to the risk of IPV.


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Table 2. Predictors of Violence by Current Intimate Partner, Adult Lifetime (N = 987).

Characteristics of female partner Age in years Violence by former intimate partners Characteristics of male partner Uses controlling behaviors Uses emotionally abusive behaviors Gets drunk twice a month or more often Violent outside of the family Characteristics of the relationship Married Model chi-square

β

SE

Exp(β) (odds ratio)

pa

0.01 0.69

0.02 0.57

1.01 1.99

.75 .23

0.66 1.71 1.20 1.58

0.35 0.32 0.63 0.50

1.93 5.54 3.32 4.86

.05 .000 .06 .002

0.10 67.05

0.48

1.18

.73 .000

Note. Nagelkerke pseudo R2 = .20; 95.0% of cases classified correctly; Hosmer and Lemeshow test of the model was not statistically significant, indicating that the model fits the data well. aValues in bold indicate statistically significant relationships.

The Australian IVAWS data also found that the strongest risk factors for IPV were associated with the men’s behavior: use of controlling behaviors, drinking habits, and violence outside of the family (Mouzos & Makkai, 2004). Similarly, control over women by their intimate partner was a significant factor linked to the perpetration of violence in the WHO multi-country study (Garcia-Moreno et al., 2006). Because the Hong Kong IVAWS involved a larger number of items, we were able to differentiate the influence of controlling and emotionally abusive behaviors, and found that, when controlling for other variables, the use of emotionally abusive behaviors was a stronger predictor of IPV than the use of controlling behaviors. Men who abuse their partner emotionally are themselves likely to feel strong negative emotions such as anger, loss of temper, and sexual jealousy, which have been linked to domestic violence (K. L. Chan, 2006; Tang & Lai, 2008; Wang, Parish, Laumann, & Luo, 2009). In this study, the possibility of more detailed analyses was limited by small numbers, but these results are worth exploring further.

Non-Partner Violence Fourteen percent of respondents (N = 181) had experienced violence by a man other than an intimate partner since the age of 16, with rates decreasing to 2.6% (N = 33) in the previous year. Over their lifetime, 8% of women reported physical or sexual violence by strangers, 4.9% by friends and acquaintances, and 2.5% by family members and relatives. Sexual violence by strangers (6.3%) and friends and acquaintances (3.9%) was more frequent than physical violence (2.4% and 1.6%, respectively), but it was rarely perpetrated by family members and relatives (0.4%). Few women (0.2%) had been raped by a stranger but 1.1% by a friend or acquaintance.



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Of the 181 women assaulted by a non-partner male, just more than 13% received injuries. Injuries were significantly more frequent during incidents of physical violence than sexual violence: 28.4% who experienced physical violence by non-partners were injured compared with 4.4% who experienced sexual violence. Violence by family members and relatives was particularly brutal: 36% of victims were injured, and 38% said that they feared for their life during the most recent incident. The same proportion of victims of IPV were injured but only 22% feared for their life. Smaller proportions of victims were injured by friends and acquaintances (11.8%) or strangers (8.6%). This result is not entirely surprising as women mainly experienced physical assault from relatives, while unwanted sexual touching, which is less likely to result in injuries, was essentially committed by strangers. Predictors of non-partner violence. Four factors were significantly related to increased risks of victimization by a non-partner: the respondent’s younger age, being involved in a dating relationship, working, and not having a say in how her income was spent. Based on the 12-month rate of violence, we conducted a logistic regression to assess the relative strength of each factor. All the variables included in the logistic regression relate to the female respondents because we had little information on the perpetrators of violence. The following five variables were included in the regression: (1) Age: in years, continuous variable from younger to older (2) Relationship: 1 = dating relationship; 0 = married, de facto, single (3) Work status: 1 = works for pay; 0 = does not work for pay (4) Monthly household income: 1 = less than HK$20,000; 0 = HK$20,000 and above (5) Control over income: 1 = has no control over income; 0 = has control over income or has no income. Table 3 presents the results of logistic regression. Three factors were significant predictors of victimization by non-partners: relationship, work status, and control over income. Women who were dating a boyfriend were over three times more likely to be the victims of violence by men (other than their boyfriend). Women who worked for pay were three and a half times more prone to violence by non-partners than women who did not work, and a lack of control over income increased women’s risk of victimization by a factor of 2.5. However, younger age (below 35 years) did not significantly increase the risk of victimization by non-partners. These results are consistent with the IVAWS findings in other countries. The Australian IVAWS found that younger women who were single or dating had the greatest risk of violence by a non-partner male. In Hong Kong, the rate of victimization of single women was higher than that of married women (2.7% and 1%, respectively) but the difference was not statistically significant. The higher rates of victimization for dating women and working women can be explained by routine activities theory. Women who worked outside of their home were more likely to come in contact with potential perpetrators at work or in public places. For example,


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Table 3. Predictors of Violence by Non-Partners, Past Year (N = 1,217).

Age in years Dating a boyfriend Works for pay Monthly household income less than HK$20,000 (yes) No control over personal income Model chi-square

β

SE

Exp(β) (odds ratio)

0.30 1.36 1.23 0.90 0.90 47.97

0.02 0.42 0.54 0.37 0.45

1.03 3.90 3.42 1.09 2.44

pa .11 .001 .02 .82 .04 .000

Note. Nagelkerke pseudo R2 = .17; 97.5% of cases classified correctly; Hosmer and Lemeshow test of the model was not statistically significant, indicating that the model fits the data well. aValues in bold indicate statistically significant relationships.

indecent assault has been noted as an increasing problem in the mid-2000s on Hong Kong public transport (Chui & Ong, 2008), and working women were likely to use public transport more often than non-working women. It is somewhat surprising that lack of control over personal income was not related to risks of victimization by intimate partners but to victimization by non-partners, probably reflecting control and victimization by parents and relatives. Small numbers make it difficult to examine this finding further, but we note that it confirms findings from other research that control over women is usually a predictor of violence.

Perceptions and Responses to Violence Women who had been the victims of violence (N = 289) were asked to rate the seriousness of the most recent incident as “very serious,” “somewhat serious,” and “not very serious.” We combined very and somewhat serious into a single “serious” rating. Nearly half the victims of violence by non-partners (46%) believed that the assault was serious with little difference by type of perpetrator or type of violence. Only 38% of victims of violence by their current partner rated the most recent incident as serious, and they were more likely to rate physical rather than sexual violence as serious. Victims who had been injured and those who felt that their life was in danger were more likely to regard the incident as serious than other victims. As distinct from seriousness, there was also a normative question asking whether the victim regarded the incident as a crime. As the relational proximity between them and the perpetrator of violence decreased, women were more inclined to regard the assault as a crime. Thus, a larger proportion of victims of violence by non-partners regarded the incident as a crime compared with victims of violence by an intimate partner (45% and 14%, respectively), and the highest proportion of victims who said that the incident was a crime were those attacked by strangers (59%). Victims of sexual violence and those victims who rated the incident as serious were more likely to also label it a crime than other victims.



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Few victims reported the most recent incident to the police with a similar proportion for partner and non-partner violence (12%). Only 3% of incidents of sexual violence were reported compared with 23% of physical violence. Women were more likely to report to the police if they had been injured, if they perceived the incident was serious, or if they regarded it as a crime. The main reasons for not contacting the police were that the incident was too minor and that the victim or her family dealt with it.

Prevalence of Violence in Other IVAWS Countries Besides Hong Kong, the results of the IVAWS are available for eight countries surveyed between 2003 and 2005: Australia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Mozambique, the Philippines, Poland, and Switzerland (Johnson et al., 2008), as well as preliminary overall results from the Singapore survey conducted in 2009 (Bouhours, Chan, Bong, & Anderson, 2013). This gives us the opportunity to compare the extent of violence in Hong Kong with the other countries (for detailed comparisons, see Broadhurst et al., 2012). Across all types of violence, rates in Hong Kong were low compared with other countries (Table 4). For any violence over the adult lifetime, Singapore recorded the lowest rate (9.2%), followed by the Philippines (17%) and Hong Kong (19.9%) with substantially higher rates in other countries. Violence by the current intimate partner was least frequent in Denmark, Singapore, and Switzerland (2-3%) and marginally less prevalent in Hong Kong than in the Philippines, Poland, and Australia. Rates of violence by non-partners ranged between 5.1-42%, and with 14%, Hong Kong had the third lowest rate after Singapore and the Philippines. Across the IVAWS countries, family members and relatives were least likely to perpetrate VAW with rates generally less than 10% but lowest in Singapore (1.5%) and Hong Kong (2.5%). Violence by strangers was least likely in the Philippines (3%) and Singapore (3.1%); Hong Kong’s rate of 8% was third lowest on par with that of Mozambique.

Discussion and Conclusion This article has explored the prevalence and characteristics of physical and sexual VAW in Hong Kong, where nearly 1,300 women aged 18 and above participated in the IVAWS. One in five respondents said that they had experienced violence since they were 16 years of age and nearly one in ten had been assaulted by an intimate partner. Of the countries surveyed by the IVAWS, Hong Kong, along with the Philippines, recorded the lowest levels of VAW, behind Singapore. Although the role of women has changed in the modern period, Hong Kong is often described as having retained much of the traditional patriarchal values of China, including the institutionalized subordination of women and a degree of tolerance for domestic violence (Pearson & Leung, 1995; Tang, 1999b; Tang, Au, Chung, & Ngo, 2000). In terms of improvement in the status of women, Hong Kong has followed a relatively similar path to the Western countries; thus, it is surprising that the results of the IVAWS indicate much lower levels of VAW than those in most of the other countries. The IVAWS is primarily


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Table 4. Lifetime Rates of VAW in Other IVAWS Countries (%). Country Singapore Philippines Hong Kong Poland Switzerland Denmark Mozambique Australia Czech Republic Costa Rica

Any violencea

Current partner violence

Non-partner violence

9.2 17 19.9 35 39 50 55 57 58 60

2 7 5.3 7 2 3 31 8 16 20

5.1 10 14 25 31 37 19 31 35 42

Source. Singapore: Bouhours, Chan, Bong, and Anderson (2013); other countries: Johnson, Ollus, and Nevala (2008). Note. VAW = violence against women; IVAWS = International Violence Against Women Survey. Values in bold denote Hong Kong results. aThis includes lifetime violence by current partner, former partner, and non-partners.

a prevalence instrument and because it is victim-centered and does not explore the antecedents of the violent incidents, it offers only limited possibilities to examine causal factors associated with violence. Therefore, based on the survey, we are only able to put forward suggestions and hypotheses to explain the low rate of VAW in Hong Kong, and it is likely a combination of factors is at play. The general limitations of telephone surveys also apply to the IVAWS Hong Kong, and victimization surveys are prone to a variety of response errors. For example, some participants might not recall trivial incidents or they may fail to realize that an incident is relevant. Participants may not be completely truthful in their answers or they might be unwilling to disclose some or all of their victimization experiences. As noted earlier, Chinese culture is strongly family oriented and people tend to assume collective responsibility for the actions of family members; therefore, to maintain face, women may tend to underreport violence by their partner or other family members because they fear it may reflect badly on them or their kin (K. L. Chan, 2012). However, the IVAWS has been carefully designed to encourage women to talk about their experiences. It is conducted by highly skilled interviewers who are able to build rapport with respondents, and confidentiality is guaranteed, which is not the case when reporting to police or other official organizations. Another limitation is that only violence that occurred after the respondents’ 16th birthday was captured by the Hong Kong survey, and future studies should include the childhood abuse module of the IVAWS questionnaire. A number of factors are consistent with low rates of VAW in Hong Kong. First, as indicated by the International Crime Victims Survey conducted in 2006 (Broadhurst, Bacon-Shone, Bouhours, Lee, & Zhong, 2010), Hong Kong is one of the safest cities in the world with low rates of both property and violent crimes.



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Second, situational factors certainly play a role in maintaining low levels of crime and violence. Hong Kong is extremely urbanized, and results from the WHO multicountry study of domestic violence showed consistently lower levels of IPV in urban areas compared with provincial areas (Garcia-Moreno et al., 2006). Because of its small size and a high ratio of police per capita, Hong Kong has high levels of formal social control. Informal social control is also strong because high density living means that “capable guardians” are likely to be present to stop conflicts from escalading into violence. The low levels of VAW found in Hong Kong and Singapore, two modern, wealthy, cosmopolitan, and dynamic Chinese city states, suggest that cultural influences may play a role. The first population-based survey conducted in mainland China in 1999-2000 reported a rate of IPV of 6.5% in urban areas in the previous 12 months. Although this was much higher than Hong Kong (0.7%), the authors remarked that the prevalence of IPV in China was slightly lower than the overall median for other countries (Wang et al., 2009). K. L. Chan (2012) examined the association between the Chinese concept of “face” and dating partner violence. Face is described as honor, status, or reputation and although it is not uniquely Chinese, it is more deeply embedded in the Chinese culture than elsewhere. Chan found that efforts to gain face could lead to the perpetration of IPV if men did not receive the level of respect and compliance they expected from their partners. There was no association, however, between loss of face and IPV. In a previous study involving Asian American men, loss of face was a protective factor against sexual aggression because these men were aware that it was a non-normative act that would bring loss of face for themselves and their ethnic group; by contrast, loss of face was not a protective factor among European American men (Hall, Teten, DeGarmo, Sue, & Stephens, 2005). In recent decades, modernization and economic growth have influenced the expression of Chinese culture in Hong Kong. It is essential for the Hong Kong economy that women are educated and empowered, and that they enter the workforce as fully productive contributors. Although male authority was traditionally supreme, with the advent of modernity and Western influences, traditional extended kinship households are less common and male authority is declining. For example, in a survey conducted in 1996, Tang (1999a) found that a large proportion of Hong Kong couples who were interviewed had an egalitarian marital relationship and that unequal distribution of power in marriages was associated with marital aggression. Some traditional Chinese values linked to Confucianism, although in decline, remain important particularly in the familial domain. Hong Kong (and probably Singapore also) is going through a transitional, hybrid stage where the benefits of modernization and economic expansion are present, along with some protective factors retained in the adherence to traditional values. For example, the family system remains strong, but the typical household tends to become limited to the nuclear family. Filial piety fosters respect not only for elders but also for authority and conformity more generally. The results of the IVAWS support Chan and Lee’s (1995) argument that


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the belief system as currently prevalent in Hong Kong . . . is a belief system, which situates upon the broad conjuncture of traditionalism and modernism, while mitigated by the specific substance of traditional Chinese culture and present Hong Kong conditions. . . . One must conclude that this belief system functions remarkably well, both in terms of its own persistence, as well as in providing the ideological groundwork for economic advancement and social stability. (p. 87)

Research into the perpetration of violence and victimization in China is still in its infancy. While the IVAWS has been conducted in Hong Kong and Singapore, domestic violence is only just starting to be recognized as a public health problem in mainland China with the first population-based survey on domestic violence only recently conducted (Wang et al., 2009). China has been experiencing profound economic and social change in the last 30 years, which has led to a redefinition of the role of women. It would be important to deploy the IVAWS (or a similar standardized survey) in a number of Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, and in rural cities such as Xi’an or Chongqing. It would also be helpful to repeat the survey in Hong Kong at regular intervals as a means of gauging change and assessing the impact of policy development in terms of women’s rights and violence prevention. Large-scale surveys such as the IVAWS are useful to measure prevalence, but they need to be complemented by in-depth interviews capable of capturing the local particularities. For example, in China, qualitative studies could explore the relationship between particular values, such as those pertaining to Confucianism and VAW. Finally, further research should focus on the potential association between cultural factors and the perpetration of VAW by extending the IVAWS to other Asian countries with different cultures, values, and religions, such as Japan, Thailand, and Indonesia. Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of John Bacon-Shone, the Hong Kong University Social Sciences Research Centre, and John Kesteren. In addition, we would like to thank Lena Zhong, Kent Lee, and Loretta Tang who helped with the translation of survey question and the training of interviewers; and Thierry Bouhours, Robyn Holder, and Irene Yeung Oi Yan for their feedback at various stages of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: We thank the corporate sponsors of the 2nd Asia Cybercrime Summit in Hong Kong, who granted a surplus from that event to be used for this study, and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security for its financial support.



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Notes 1. For example, instead of asking, “Have you been raped?” the survey asks, “Has a man forced you into sexual intercourse by threatening you, hurting you, or holding you down?” 2. Results for nine countries, excluding Greece, Italy, and Singapore, have been published in Johnson, Ollus, and Nevala (2008). Other publications in English are country reports for Australia (Mouzos & Makkai, 2004), Switzerland (Killias, Simonin, & de Puy, 2005), and Singapore (Bouhours, Chan, Bong, & Anderson, 2013). 3. The full survey report, including detailed background notes, social indicators, and other details, is available at http://regnet.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/HK_ICVS_2006_fixed_0.pdf 4. Both physical and verbal abuse were measured using the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), which records the behavior people might engage in when in conflict with their spouse/ partners. Tang reported that 67.2% of husbands had engaged in psychological abuse in the previous year; the measures used, however, included common behaviors such as sulking and not talking. While such behaviors are negative conflict resolution strategies, it is questionable whether they constitute abuse (for a critique of the CTS, see Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly, 1992). 5. Response rates in other International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) countries ranged from 39% in Australia to 99% in the Philippines with a mean of 71% (Johnson et al., 2008). 6. The IVAWS also examines violence by former intimate partners, but in this article, we focus on violence by current intimate partner. 7. We did not include the age of the male partner as a variable because it correlates highly with the age of the female partner (r = .94).

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Author Biographies Brigitte Bouhours is a research associate at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. She has developed and analyzed large-scale victimization surveys in China and South East Asia, with a focus on violence against women. Her other areas of interest include homicide and comparative studies of crime and violence. She recently participated in a major project on crime, violence, and modernization in Cambodia, which results will be published in 2015 by Cambridge University Press under the title Violence and the Civilising Process in Cambodia. Roderic Broadhurst is a professor of criminology at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. He is an associate fellow of the Australian Institute of Criminology. He has conducted several crime victimization surveys in China and Cambodia. His current research includes organized and transnational crime, homicide, crime and violence in Cambodia, and crime in cyberspace.


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