India - Kerala women are battered wives

Kerala, the south Indian state which has the highest literacy levels and excellent social development indicators, has an unsavoury side - a land of violent husbands. An IPS analysis of the data of domestic violence which was recorded in the Kerala State Crimes Records Bureau (KSCRB), under the state government's home department, has revealed a nearly 50 percent increase in wife-beating complaints registered at police stations in the state during the period 1998- 2008. The number of incidents of crimes relating to spousal assaults on women was 2,333 in 1988 and reached up to 4,143 in 2008. The analysis also disclosed a 50 percent increase in the incidence of violence against Kerala women in the same period, which has risen from 4,734 to 9,706.