Child Abuse & Neglect 34 (2010) 523–533 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Child Abuse & Neglect Maternal violence, victimization, and child physical punishment in Peru Anastasia J. Gage a,* , Eva A. Silvestre b a Department of International Health and Development, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, 1440 Canal Street, Suite 2200 TB46, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA b The Policy & Research Group, New Orleans, LA, USA article info Article history: Received 17 April 2007 Received in revised form 24 November 2009 Accepted 1 December 2009 Keywords: Physical punishment Intimate partner violence Peru Risk factors abstract Objectives: This study examined whether mothers’ experience of violence was a risk factor for physical punishment. Methods: Data were derived from the nationally representative 2000 Peru Demographic and Family Health Survey. Participants were 12,601 currently married women who were living with biological children aged 0–17 years and were responsible for disciplining the children. A multinomial logit model was used to determine the probabilities of using no physical punishment, slapping/spanking only, beating only, and both slapping/spanking and beating to discipline children. Results: The study found that childhood history of physical punishment, a greater variety of intimate partner emotional violence and experience of intimate partner physical violence increased significantly a mother’s probability of using physical punishment with her chil- dren, even after controlling for confounding factors. A mother’s history of physical violence victimization by someone other than the current partner was also a significant factor for beating children as opposed to using non-physical forms of punishment. Conclusions: Mothers were at substantially increased risk of using physical punishment if they were victims of parental physical violence in childhood, intimate partner violence in the current union, and physical violence by someone other than the current partner. Practice implications: Increased public education is needed of the negative consequences of intimate partner emotional and physical violence victimization for mothers’ childrearing strategies. There is a need to integrate intimate partner violence into child welfare programs and develop effective screening mechanisms for maternal violence victimization and child maltreatment. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Intimate partner violence (IPV) and child physical punishment are major international public health concerns. Nationally representative samples of ever-married women of reproductive age in Latin America and the Caribbean have demonstrated that 39% of women in Colombia (Ojeda, Ordó ˜ nez, & Ochoa, 2005), 18% of those in Haiti (Caymittes, Placide, Barrère, Mariko, & Sévère, 2001), and 41% of those in Peru (Reyes & Ochoa, 2001) have ever experienced IPV. In a 1999 survey undertaken by the National Institute of Statistics in metropolitan Lima, 82% of women interviewed said that they knew someone who had * Corresponding author. 0145-2134/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2009.12.004