Men as Victims of Intimate Partner Violence in Cameroon and Sierra Leone

There is a lack of research on how global intimate partner violence (IPV) has impacted men, especially in patriarchal societies of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This study used data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted in Cameroon and Sierra Leone after 2010 to examine the prevalence and predictors of IPV victimization among married or cohabiting men aged 15 to 59 years. We chose to examine factors related to IPV victimization separately in each country to highlight the importance of not generalizing results from one SSA country to another or to SSA as a whole. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine factors associated with physical, psychological, and sexual IPV victimization. In Cameroon, 26.5% of men reported psychological victimization, 24.4% reported physical victimization, and 2.3% reported sexual victimization in the year before the survey. The corresponding proportions of male victims in Sierra Leone were 23.4%, 14.9%, and 2.7% respectively. Men in both countries experienced more psychological violence than physical or sexual violence. The prevalence of IPV varied by age, education, ethnicity, witnessed father beating his mother, wife’s alcohol consumption, and approval of wife-beating. In both countries, reporting IPV victimization was related to exposure to father beating mother, alcohol consumption, ethnicity, and approval of wife-beating. Implications of these findings suggest that it is important to consider the influence of contextual and structural factors in understanding the vulnerability of men to IPV victimization. The inconsistent patterns and socio-cultural variation within countries suggest that a multilayer approach should be used to prevent and respond to IPV against men.