Liberia was associated with a 50 percent increase in the risk of IPV compared to residing in a district where there were no conflict-related fatalities. Women living in a district that experienced 4-5 cumulative years of conflict were also more likely to experience IPV. Gallegos and Guitierrez (2016) examine the effect of women’s exposure to the internal conflict in Peru in childhood and teenage years on the likelihood that they will perpetrate or experience domestic violence. Findings suggest that female exposure to the internal conflict in Peru increases their risk of being both a perpetrator and a victim of IPV. The study also finds that women exposed to more conflict events are more likely to justify violence against women and stay in a violent relationship. Østby (2016) using subnational data on armed conflict events with individual-level data on partner abuse from DHS surveys in 17 Sub-Saharan African countries finds that the intensity of armed conflict in the home region has an independent and significant effect on women’s risk of experiencing sexual IPV. Falb et al. (2013) examine the effect of <mark>conflict on past-year IPV among refugee women affected by the conflict in Burma (Myanmar). They find that women who experienced conflict victimization</mark><sup>15</sup> <mark>were 6 times more likely to report past-year IPV than women who had not experienced conflict victimization.</mark> Turning to drivers of IPV in conflict affected and fragile settings, results from a number of studies are consistent with the hypothesis that the impact of conflict outside the home spills over to affect individuals within the household. Bruck and Stojetz (2019) examine exposure to wartime sexual violence by armed groups and find exposure to sexual violence by armed groups against women makes male veterans about 30 percentage points more likely to commit physical – but not sexual – IPV 18 years later (on average). Saile et al. (2013) <mark>examine the prevalence and predictors of current partner violence experienced by women in post-conflict Uganda. The authors suggest that women’s prior exposure to war-related traumatic events as well as men’s level of alcohol-related problems were associated with higher levels of partner violence against women. And Gupta et al.’s (2012) study of South Africa during apartheid of men who were liberation supporters and men who were government supporters found an association between experiencing major human rights violation (HRV) and victimization of close friends or family members and with perpetration of physical IPV. For liberation supporters, experiences of custody related HRV were also linked with IPV perpetration. C</mark> lark et al. (2010) examine the effect of political violence on female experiences and male perpetuation of IPV in West Bank and Gaza and find that political violence is significantly related to higher risk of IPV. Specifically, <mark>the direct exposure of a husband to political violence was associated with 89 percent higher odds of reporting physical violence, and 123 percent higher odds of reporting sexual violence compared with women whose husbands were not directly exposed to political violence. Similarly, Gupta et al. (2009) find that exposure to political violence in their country of origin increased the likelihood of male immigrants to the United States perpetrating IPV.</mark> Qualitative studies have shed more light on the interactions between factors at different levels of the ecological framework, pointing to causal pathways and showing a more nuanced dynamic. For example, using focus groups, Horn et al. (2014) explore women’s perceptions of the causes of IPV in conflict settings in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The findings suggest that wars increased the use of violence by some men, which was driven by the normalization of violence as a way of

> 15 Falb (2013) describes conflict victimization as “targeted violence against civilian women, including sexual violence which is seen as a "tactic of war" and associated with a range of negative outcomes, including poor mental health stigma, isolation, and shame; and increased vulnerability to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.”

10