Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Violence against housemaids in an Ethiopian town during the early phase
of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study
Version: 
3 
Date: 
14 Jul 2022
Reviewer's report:
Although the authors have made significant improvements to the manuscript,
there are still several areas, particularly in the results and discussion section, that
should be revised before this study is suitable for publication. I have separated
my comments below into major and minor categories, with items marked major
being those I consider crucial before publication
Methods:
MINOR: I had suggested that the ethics section be placed within the methods
section, and the author said they had done this, but the manuscript does not show
this.
Results: 
The results are clearer than they were before, and the tables much more
improved
MINOR: As I noted in the previous review, the authors need to be careful in how
they report violence during COVID. When they say that women experienced
"*more* physical violence since the lockdown…." this is a misrepresentation of
the results because we do not know what the pre-lockdown rates were or if they
had increased.
MINOR: I urge the authors to review the reporting on the types, timing, and
impact of physical and sexual violence that housemaids experience and to make
it clearer when the percentages they report are for the subset of women who
experience violence. 
Either the authors have to be more repetitive in reminding
readers that they are reporting on the subset of women who have experienced
violence, or they should use the full sample as the denominator in the
percentages that they report. Otherwise, it can be a little difficult to keep clear
what the percentages being reported mean. 
MAJOR: The authors also need to be more consistent in calculating these
percentages of types and timing of violence in the tables. In table 5, the
denominator for percentages is the number of women reporting violence, and in
table 7, it is the total sample. This leads to confusion in the write-up also where
you report on page 12, like 34, that the "great majority (18.6%) of women report
sexual violence during COVID
MAJOR: 
My concerns about how sexual violence is reported remain. The
authors state that women needed positive responses to all three of the sexual
violence variables in order to be scored "yes" for sexual violence. This makes no
sense to me. Attempted rape is commonly understood as sexual violence, as is
unwanted touching. If a woman answered yes to ANY of those three questions,
they should be counted as having experienced violence. This analysis needs to be
redone. 
MAJOR: I had recommended that the authors remove the respondents' sexual
history from table 7, 
but part of this information remains in the "reasons for
sexual intercourse" item (page 42). Voluntary sexual intercourse is not sexual
violence and is not a reason for sexual violence. Including that item here makes
it seem as if the authors are blaming the respondents for the violence perpetrated
against them. 
MINOR: In my previous results, I had a question about whether experiences of
sexual and physical violence were asked about current or past employers. The
authors clarified this point in their response to me but did not make changes to
the manuscript to clarify it for readers. I would recommend that when they revise
the manuscript, they add the term "current employer "to the table headings and
descriptions of employers' characteristics so that it is clear that what is being
reported are the characteristics of current employers rather than past employers.
An alternative would be to delete mentions of past employers since it doesn't
seem that data was collected on past employers.
Discussion
In the first sentence of the discussion (page 13, line 26), impact should be
replaced with "prevalence," I think. 
MINOR: Overall, as I noted in the previous review and above, the authors need
to be clear about when they are talking about levels of violence in general or
during COVID. In discussing how their findings align with previous studies, it
might be useful to group the discussion by studies done during COVID and
those done before COVID so that we can compare your estimates to other
COVID-era studies. This is particularly important because you use the fact that
your study was conducted during COVID to explain why your estimates may be
higher than those found in other studies. 
MAJOR: 
There should be more of a discussion of the extent of the differences in
the authors' prevalence estimates and the ones found in other studies (were they
large or small?). I recommended this in the previous review, and the authors said
that they addressed this comment, but I see no discussion of the magnitude (size)
of differences. 
MAJOR: There also needs to be more of a discussion of the reasons *why *
these differences were found. "Demographic and cultural differences in the study
populations" is not very specific. What socio-demographic differences are
important (you mention that housewives may be more marginalized in Ethiopia
than elsewhere, but this is just a single point that needs citations and deeper
discussion). Are there other factors such as the different age/education levels in
housemaids, differing legal protections, or differing patriarchal beliefs that could
be driving higher physical and sexual violence rates? Could you discuss these
with the proper citations?
MAJOR: I'm confused about the discussion of age as a risk factor. Being in the
youngest age group is not a risk factor (being in the middle age group is), so I
don't think that you can argue that your findings agree with those that state that
younger housemaids are exceptionally vulnerable to violence. Rather, your
findings seem to disagree with this prior consensus, and that discrepancy needs
to be discussed. This discussion needs to be edited on pages 14 and 17 in the
study implications. 
MINOR: Your findings about the importance of chat and alcohol consumption
are the strongest, and these are discussed well. I think you can combine the
discussion of chat for sexual violence on page 16 with the discussion on page 14
rather than separating it.
GENERAL EDITORIAL
MINOR: I recommend a final close read for correcting style and grammar and
for copy editing as there are still numerous minor typographical and grammatical
errors in the manuscript. At times, the flow of the arguments could be improved
by organizing some of the paragraphs. For example, on page 4, on line 9, the
author states that COVID-19 restrictions could exacerbate the risk of violence
among housemaids without giving an example. The next paragraph on line 31
gives an example of how the stay-at-home orders could exacerbate violence. The
arguments would have flown better if the statements more closely followed each
other. There are several examples of this, particularly in the introduction, so I
recommend reading it through again and ensuring that the arguments flow well.
Other smaller editorial decisions like being consistent with the spelling out of
numbers and making sure acronyms are spelled out on the first mention are also
needed.
MINOR: In future responses to revisions, please include the line number and
page number where the edits were made in the manuscript so that it's easier for
reviewers to check how the authors responded to their recommendations in their
discussions
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Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
Yes
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
Yes
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes