"Impact of Domestic Violence on Women Empowerment in Forest Villages:A Study of Betul District of M.P."

This paper is an outcome of NAEB, GoI, New Delhi sponsored Project "Women Empowerment through Forest Development Activities for Sustainable Livelihood in Tribal Districts of M. P.". This study is based on primary data collected from four tribal districts of Madhya Pradesh. The in-depth study was carried out in Betul district of Madhya Pradesh. The primary data was collected through organizing, group discussion and structured questionnaire. The detailed house hold interviews of 200 women were conducted in the presence of Forest department officials to understand the insights of the problem. From Betul district five villages were selected namely Kolhudhana, Karanjidol, Sihari, Dharakhoh and Bansbodi, to assess the impact of the problem on various dimensions of Women Empowerment in Forest villages. During scanning of literature the first author has not found any adequate literature which can focus on the impact of domestic violence on women empowerment and how the different intensities of domestic violence different levels of women empowerment. Thus, this affects study is undertaken to assess the impact of domestic violence on women empowerment.The basic objective of this study is to assess the impact of domestic violence on Women Empowerment from different dimensions related to agricultural resource management, livestock resource management, livelihood, forest resource management. Secondly, this paper examines the impact of different intensities of domestic violence categorized as high, medium and low on above resources. The third objective of this paper is to assess how women empowerment can be weaken and how women empowerment could be strengthened. The association of correlation between impact of domestic violence and women empowerment has been found closely associated. At last, the paper reveals that there is a significant impact of domestic violence and its different intensities on women empowerment in forest villages which affects the natural Resource Management. It is highly recommended that a separate study need to be sponsored by Planning Commission for assessing the impact of domestic violence on women empowerment in rural areas, where the natural resources are the main source of livelihood.