Nonconsensual sex in marriage is part of the larger cultural landscape of many societies where sex in marriage is believed to be a man’s right. Sexual coercion and violence is prevalent in marriage, and most women endure abuse by partners quietly due to restrictive social and cultural norms and stigma associated with separation or divorce. Sexual intimate partner violence is a product of gendered relations, structures and practices of male power. While there is an awareness of the importance of aligning the local knowledge and theoretical concepts in designing and implementing interventions that seek to address intimate partner violence, most programs in Tanzania and other low and middle-income countries mainly employ a conventional definition of sexual intimate partner violence as articulated by WHO. However, the meanings that different people attach to actions and behaviors-including those that constitute sexual violence-are best understood in a specific socio-cultural context.

Sexual violence occurs in all societies, cultures and across all categories of difference-class, gender, race and ethnicity. Īccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), sexual violence is defined as “any sexual act, attempts to obtain a sexual act, or acts to traffic for sexual purposes, directed against a person using coercion, harassment or advances made by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work”. Sexual violence at first intercourse in particular is associated with increased tolerance of violence later in life, suicidal attempts, increased risk of physical violence and having more sexual partners or partners with alcohol problems. It is linked to gynecological problems, unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, lack of sexual desire and loss of pleasure in sexual life as well as poor mental health and trauma. Sexual intimate partner violence is a global health problem that profoundly impacts women’s health. A study in Moshi, Tanzania, found that about 10.9% of women were sexually abused at first intercourse, and an additional 15.3% described their first sexual encounter as unwanted. In Mwanza, Tanzania, 38% of women reported lifetime sexual intimate partner violence, and 17% reported it in the previous 12 months.

In Tanzania, the 2015–2016 Demographic and Health Survey reports that 14% of women have experienced one or more acts of sexual violence, the most common being physically forced to have sexual intercourse by their spouse when they did not want to. A meta-analysis reports that in sub-Saharan Africa the pooled prevalence rate of sexual intimate partner violence is 18.8%. Sexual violence is commonly perpetrated by men known to the women, often their intimate partners. In recent years, there has been increased attention on understanding the multilayered causes of sexual violence and how it impacts women’s health, as well as on innovative prevention strategies to mitigate its varied consequences. Future studies need to improve the measurement of sexual intimate partner violence to allow the collection of encompassing, yet comparable, data on this harmful phenomenon. Women in this study felt violated by a far wider range of sexual acts in their relationships. They also identified several acts that were crossing the line, whereby a discrepancy of views existed whether they constituted SIPV, such as having sex when out of the mood, sex being the duty of the wife, sex during the menses, requests for anal sex, having sex to not lose the husband, husband refusing sex and husband having other partners. The women clearly defined acts of positive sexual relationships that occurred with mutual consent and seduction and SIPV that included acts of forced sex and sex under the threat of violence. Using a thematic approach, we identified key features of women’s sexual intimate relationships and their perceptions of them. We explored women’s conceptualizations of SIPV by conducting in-depth interviews with 18 Tanzanian women. While physical intimate partner violence is covered by a wide range of behaviors, sexual intimate partner violence (SIPV) is often only measured through attempted or completed forced sex, ignoring less obvious forms of sexual intimate partner violence. Intimate partner violence is a recognized public health and development issue that is consistently and comparatively measured through women’s experience of physical and/or sexual acts by their partner.

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