Men’s Accounts of Passion Killings in the Namibian Context

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global social problem, which may result in intimate partner homicide (IPH). Much of the research concerned with IPH is based in developed nations and as such this study explored men’s explanations for IPH (known locally as “passion killing”) in the Namibian context by interviewing 10 individuals who were convicted and sentenced for the murder of their female intimate partners. A semi-structured interview was conducted with the offenders and the resulting transcripts were analyzed by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Findings confirmed and extended previous research stating that the intertwined influence of cultural beliefs and attitudes, external influences, as well as lack of emotional control and problem-solving skills, influence IPH. However, the study discovered that culture-specific factors, such as witchcraft, also play a role in some IPH cases in Namibia. The findings suggest approaches to work with young men and perpetrators to reduce their rate of initially committing IPH or repeating it. Furthermore, understanding cross-cultural differences may help in developing appropriate, culturally specific, programs aimed at reducing and/or preventing IPH.

Keywords

violence alcohol and drugs domestic violence cultural contexts homicide violent offenders

Introduction

Aggression against women, by male partners, is a persistent societal issue (Dobash & Dobash, 1978) that appears to be increasing in prevalence (Garcia-Moreno & Watts, 2011; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006), incorporating physical, psychological, and sexual abuse (Thompson et al., 2006). Despite the reported rise in incidents, causal factors are unclear. We do know that cultural beliefs, negative external influences, lack of emotional control, and poor problem-solving skills are identified as contributing to aggression against women (Adams, 2007; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2006; Jewkes, 2002).

Most studies concerned with intimate partner violence (IPV) are carried out in developed nations, particularly in the United States. Early studies identified a number of factors often linked to IPV, such as increased likelihood of a criminal history, and links with binge drinking and having witnessed parental IPV, along with attributing blame to external sources (Bograd, 1988) and a sense of loss of freedom within a relationship (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). Perhaps counterintuitively, research has also suggested that IPV is not related to, for example, sexist beliefs, fear of abandonment or jealousy, but rather it is a response to criticism (Costa & Babcock, 2008). To further add complexity to the issue, various authors have considered IPV within African American culture and have suggested that African American men are also influenced by what Hampton, Oliver, and Magarian (2003) referred to as institutionalized racism, resulting in their hatred, frustration, and anger being displaced onto their intimate partners, a pattern of behavior described by Hare (1964) as “frustrated masculinity syndrome.” As McHugh and Frieze (2006) have stated, the only real conclusion that can currently be drawn about males who commit IPV is that they are a heterogeneous group.

One important issue for a psychology of IPV is determining what is meant by violence. Some authors have suggested that current conceptualizations of IPV do not account for the vast array of behaviors labeled as violent within relationships (see McHugh, Livingston, & Ford, 2005). However, there is one form of IPV that does not suffer from this problem and that is intimate partner homicide (IPH).

IPH

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice reported that 3,520 women were victims of homicide (a rate of 2.3 per 100,000 U.S. residents; E. L. Smith & Cooper, 2013). Aizer and Dal Bo (2009) suggested that IPH accounts for 33% of all female homicides in the United States, indicating approximately 1,200 women are killed annually by intimate partners. Research has suggested that women are 9 times more likely to be killed by an intimate partner or ex-intimate partner than by a stranger (Campbell, Glass, Sharps, Laughon, & Bloom, 2007). This pattern of greater risk from intimates and ex-intimates is found across numerous countries and across decades (Campbell, 1986; Dobash, Dobash, Cavanagh, & Lewis, 2000; Gibson & Klein, 1969; Wolfgang, 1958). As such, IPH remains a major contributor to the death of women around the world. Research has attempted to understand the basis for IPH and recent findings offer some useful pointers. For example, the work by Stöckl et al. (2013) showed similar rates across nations suggesting that cultural and global socio-economic context may not be major determinants for IPH.

Predominantly, the type of work conducted to understand IPV and IPH has been quantitative and as such has been limited by the theoretical standpoint of the researchers and the focus of the tools used to gather data. Although not intended as a criticism, it is interesting that few studies have sought to explore IPV and IPH from the perspective of the offenders, to develop a sense of how they understand their offences and their victims, an issue earlier identified by Goodrum, Umberson, and Anderson (2001). Only a handful of studies have examined IPH (Adams, 2007; Elisha, Idisis, Timor, & Addad, 2010; Dobash, Dobash, Cavanagh, & Medina-Ariza, 2007; Showalter, Bonnie, & Roddy, 1980) or IPV (Borochowitz, 2008; Goodrum et al., 2001; Hattery, 2008; E. L. Smith, 2008) via a qualitative approach. Showalter and colleagues (1980) effectively carried out a quantitative study based on qualitative data, making use of case files and video recordings of 11 cases of IPH referred to their forensic service. They identified what they refer to as “spousal-homicide syndrome”; the outcome of a spousal relationship that is based on a man’s previously unsatisfying relationship with his mother, leaving the man with unrealistic, high expectations of the relationship, resulting in frustration and stress when the relationship begins to break down. Despite their clinical interpretation, they do not offer directions as to how to resolve these concerns. In their exploration of murders in the United Kingdom, Dobash et al. (2007) collected data concerning 180 men and 20 women incarcerated for murder. In their 2011 article, Dobash and Dobash considered the file data of the 104 men from this sample who were convicted of IPH. The authors identified a number of characteristics of these men, for example, their relationships showed aspects of jealousy, repeated violence, and a tendency to rationalize aspects of their killing, each of which are considered important starting points for intervention with such men. This rationalization may include placing responsibility on the victims, which has been previously identified (Coates & Wade, 2007). Adams (2007) interviewed 31 men who committed IPH and a number of female victims of attempted murder, concluding that these types of murder were seldom unplanned and “passionate” in the sense of being beyond the individual’s control. Elisha et al.’s (2010) study is based on interviews with 15 men incarcerated in an Israeli prison, convicted of murder, attempted murder, or the manslaughter of a female intimate partner. They identify a number of themes suggesting that the men tend to see themselves as victims, both of the woman and society, had poor interpersonal skills, and experienced a sense of their world collapsing prior to the murder. However, as indicated earlier, much of this research is concerned with developed nations, yet other parts of the world show similarly high rates of IPH, as evidenced by the work of Stöckl et al. (2013). For instance, Botswana has been the focus of a variety of studies concerned with abuse and IPH. Nkosana and Rosenthal (2007) conducted interviews with schoolgirls from Botswana to determine the strategies that they used to prevent nonconsensual, intergenerational sex. Exner and Thurston (2009) analyzed newspaper reports of IPH and determined that the use of the term Passion Killing did not differentiate the act from IPH. They reported that there appears to be a rate of one to two killings per week and that the female victims are commonly blamed for the crime because they have challenged the patriarchal society in some way, an issue that was also identified by Alao (2006). Similar claims have been made from research based in Namibia, and research has started to examine the experiences of victims of IPV (Chikuhwa, 2011). However, to date, there does not appear to be research based in Africa that has examined the ways in which the men who commit IPH conceptualize their behavior. The current study aims to present this side of the IPH relationship with the intention to identify factors that might be useful in developing programs for men and women to reduce and prevent IPH and to help in the rehabilitation of men who have committed IPH.

IPH (aka Passion Killing) in Namibia

The previous President of Namibia Hifikepunye Pohamba is reported to have said, “What kind of society have we become? Are we a society of murderers? Stop killing women!” (Shaanika, 2012, p. 2). Similarly, the former Vice-Chairperson of the National Council of Namibia (the Upper House of Parliament), Margaret Mensah-Williams stated that

the country is in serious need of healing . . . I call on men who are involved in passion killing to stop this evil deed . . . I do not want the number of women who have been killed through passion killing to increase to thousands if not to millions. (“Namibia,” 2012, p. 19)

With an estimated population of 2.3 million, between January and November 2012, a total of 31 men were arrested for IPH. Pangas (a form of machete), knives, axes, and guns were used to commit these offences with most of the reported cases in Namibia having been carried out with knives (Cloete, 2012; Hartman, 2012). Clearly the issue of IPH has been identified as problematic within Namibia and the need to find approaches to prevent it are needed. One solution suggested by Namibians is a more aggressive legal system to eradicate such crimes (Kangootui, 2013), yet this does not appear to be based on a psychological understanding of IPH. The present study seeks to further the degree of this understanding by examining the ways in which blame and responsibility are identified as being linked to their behavior.

The Namibian Context

To establish this research within the appropriate context, the following provides a brief overview of the relevant cultural information in Namibia. Although English is the official language in Namibia, many other languages are spoken falling into three categories: the Bantu languages spoken by the Aawambo, Herero, Kavango, Zambizi, and Tswana people; the Khoi-san languages spoken by the San and Nama/Damara; and the Indo-Germanic languages of Afrikaans, English, and German. The Aawambo people are the biggest ethnic group in Namibia. Within Bantu culture, there is a high degree of patriarchy with girls being raised to be submissive to males especially in the context of intimate relationships; even if abused, they are encouraged to remain in a relationship (Andima & Tjiramanga, 2014). As another example, when a girl first menstruates, she is instructed to have sexual intercourse with an older relative so that she “is well prepared as a woman, to dance well in bed during sexual intercourse” (Andima & Tjiramanga, 2014, p. 85). Other cultural practices include “widow cleansing” and “widow inheritance,” where a widow is purportedly cleansed through sex by the late husband’s brother or inherited as part of the husband’s estate (Ambunda & de Klerk, 2008), indicative of the tradition that women are property and are owned by their partner or husband (Ruppel, Mchombu, & Kandjii-Murangi, 2008). Some subtribes of the Bantu ethnic group embrace practices such as that of “wife swapping,” where men agree to exchange wives, often as gifts to each other, and women’s views on this are ignored (Mjamba, 2014).

The Bantu and Khoi-san speakers are the main groups who hold the view that the male is the head of the house and his wife is his property (Ambunda & de Klerk, 2008). Though this view has been changing since the Namibian Constitution in 1990, requiring equal rights for men and women, it is still prevalent today. Cultural norms and practices are often used to emphasize the superiority of men over women in Namibian culture. When women do not obey them, some men employ abuse to enforce their will, justified by a perceived sense of disobedience and disrespect (Andima & Tjiramanga, 2014). Another important aspect, as described by Manala (2004), is that there is a belief in the idea of spirits playing an important part in life. An element of this is a belief in witchcraft, which is believed to be able to cause harm to others. The Namibian media routinely report cases that describe witchcraft as part of a legal defense in court (Menges, 2016) and as linked to negative events (Shivute, 2006), and research has reported the use of witchcraft-based explanations in Namibia and other African countries to avert stigma from individuals with AIDS-related illnesses, for example (Thomas, 2007).

Although this brief summary of the Namibian context raises interesting issues of patriarchy that may be central to understanding IPH in Namibia, it is important to note that in different ways, women in Western cultures are also oppressed. Orelus (2010) provided an analysis of the experience of maleness in the context of men of African descent in the United States and demonstrates similar male views as exemplified by one of his participants of whom he writes,

As a case in point, a 38-year old Moroccan man, who claimed to be highly educated, repeatedly said that women are soft and weaker than men, and that they should obey their husband, stay at home and take care of the children, clean the house, and cook. A significant number of men who took part in this study shared this view. (p. 161)

Method

Participants

A total of 10 face-to-face interviews were undertaken with volunteer male participants who were convicted and sentenced for killing their intimate partners, the participants being identified from prison profile and case management files. All participants were incarcerated at a large Correctional facility located in Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia. Mean age of the volunteers at the time of interview was 37.2 years (SD = 5.85), ages ranging from 25 to 45 years. The offences occurred between 1996 and 2009 and age range at the time of offence was 21 to 35 years. The duration of the relationship at the time of the offence was between 2 and 8 years with half of the participants fathering at least one child with the victim. Nine of the participants were employed or self-employed. In all, 50% of the participants reported substance use during the offence.

Procedure

Ethical approval was granted from a U.K. university and additional permission was granted by the Commissioner-General of the Namibian Correctional Service as well as the Officer-in-Charge of the Windhoek Correctional Facility. Offenders who killed their intimate partners were identified from their prison profile and case management files with the help of Case Management Officers. Those men meeting the inclusion criteria were offered a mini-interview by two Program Officers/Offender Counselors to provide information about the research, to verify their offences (to only retain those who acknowledged their offences), to identify those who were able to communicate in English, and to identify volunteer participants. The final sample consisted of 10 men who were individually interviewed by one of the authors (M.N.) in a private interview room at the Correctional Facility.

All interviews were recorded and ranged from 20 to 45 min. The semi-structured interview explored the following areas: (a) information about the victim, (b) the length of the relationship with the victim, (c) what the incident meant to the perpetrator and (d) their upbringing and what they thought of women in general—specific questions evolved as each interview progressed. Each interview was transcribed and anonymized.

Analysis

Transcripts were analyzed by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA; J. A. Smith, 2004). IPA is an analytic methodology focusing on context and interpretation, as well as identifying the importance of subjectivity in research (Madill & Gough, 2008; Parker, McFarlane, & Soeken, 1994). It allows for the exploration of the personal experiences of participants by examining how they make sense and meaning of their experiences while allowing for interpretative flexibility (J. A. Smith, 2004). IPA has been criticized for demanding reflexive articulation qualities of participants often possessed by middle-class populations, which may bias the interpretation of the data. However, J. A. Smith (2004) argued that there is no correlation between the socio-economic status of participants and the richness of data obtained.

IPA consists of two stages: Stage 1 involves transcribing the data and then thoroughly reading the transcripts several times over until emerging themes are extracted, during Stage 2 only important themes with a rich context and relevant to the research topic are retained, while similar themes are clustered under one super-ordinate theme. According to J. A. Smith and Osborn (2003), the main broad themes are then classified into super-ordinate themes that are analyzed further.

Results

The primary motivation for this study was to examine how men understand their IPV, an important constituent for the development of intervention. Two primary themes emerged from the analysis, the use of blame for events, which identified a number of sources of blame, and taking responsibility for their behavior, which is also expressed in a number of forms.

Blame

The men identify a range of sources of blame which they understand as causal in their IPV. Although there is a breadth of sources, a central theme within all of them refers back to a sense of powerlessness, a factor which has been identified previously as feeling unbearable (Stets & Pirog-Good, 1987). The capacity to attribute blame to external sources has been previously identified in family violence (Bograd, 1988) and is considered to be a strategy to manage negative feelings (Gudjonsson & Singh, 1989) and to affect negatively on interventions (Chambers, Eccleston, Day, Ward, & Howells, 2008).

Blaming the victim

The feelings of powerlessness in the relationship have driven men to violence as a way to regain power and control, and possibly to punish a woman for her attempts at independent thought and action. These beliefs may be exacerbated by another expressed belief regarding the manner in which men understand the status of women;

They are made for us. They are our mothers and sisters but they are a problem especially when they drink or smoke. (A008, p. 2, 1-3)

We were told that a man is a man, he cannot be instructed by a woman, and no other person should interfere in his affairs with his woman. I grew up in such an environment. (A013, p. 9, 11-14)

. . . they have feelings too just like us men. We cheat on them but yet when they decide they want out, we don’t want to understand their decision. (A014, p. 5, 20-22)

This sense of women being a cause of problems, and their decisions being difficult to understand, appears throughout the transcripts in how women are perceived to sometimes speak to men, disobey men, and particularly in relation to how women react when they discover that they are being cheated on. Predominantly, the men express a view that the basic issue is that women stop listening and stop obeying.

She used to be a girl who listened. If you tell her something she will just do it. She listened to advice. (A010, p. 2, 21-22)

. . . she ignored me when I was knocking and she only opened her door when she thought I was gone and when she saw me standing there, she started insulting me again. I became very, very angry with her. (A017, p. 6, 7-10)

The men present a strong sense of entitlement to access sex outside relationships, are annoyed when their partners raise this as an issue, and are angered when they discover that their partners have cheated on them. Indeed, the cheating, implied lack of respect, and the resultant anger are frequently blamed for the IPV, as the examples below indicate:

I found her with another boy in my bed . . . I couldn’t take it because it’s my house. I became angry because I found them doing it on my bed in my house and that made me sick. She doesn’t respect me. That’s why I started beating her . . . and the fact that it was my friend even made me angrier. (A008, p. 1, 2-3; 7-8; 10-11)

The Friday before the incident, she came to me telling me she slept with someone. I was angry but I forgave her as I know everybody make mistakes. At first I wanted nothing to do with her but she begged me not to break-up with her so I thought I will give her a second chance maybe she won’t do it again. Only to find her with another guy in her shack. (A010, p. 1, 5-10)

Partners are blamed for cheating in relationships, and are also blamed for not being more able to manage their thoughts and feelings when the man cheats.

. . . the problem was that my wife usually used to bring up my girlfriend’s story and asking me to break off the relationship with my girlfriend. I used to be angry and frustrated about that so every time she brought that topic I always beat her up . . . (A019, p. 5, 11-21)

The cause is from quarrelling . . . the problem is that I was cheating on her and she knew about it . . . so she thought I want to go home and meet up with the other lady . . . She wasn’t happy at all, at one time she followed me to the other girl’s house, and it made me stop going to see that girl. (A020, p. 2, 13-14; 19-20)

It appears that losing their relationship or freedom to have additional relationships can lead to IPV, an issue that theory has previously predicted whereby the loss of a freedom motivates an individual to attempt to reestablish it (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). At least in part, this is linked to the arguments resulting from these two situations provoking a level of anger that the participants imply is also beyond their control;

. . . when she saw me standing there she started insulting me again. I became very, very angry with her and couldn’t control my anger. (A017, p. 6, 8-10)

So from there I got angry and was confused and when I was looking at her, it was as if I was looking at someone different so I took the knife out of my leg and started stabbing her with it . . . I stabbed her so many times. (A019, p. 4, 18-23)

. . . and I wasn’t drunk or anything but I became very angry so I grabbed the knife back and started stabbing her with it. . . . I can’t even remember how many times I stabbed her but I know it was a lot of times and from what the doctor said, it was 21 times. (A021, p. 8, 15-25; p. 9, 1-3)

In one case, the participant identified that his experience of anger resulted in him coping through alcohol but rather than the alcohol helping to manage the anger, the implication is that it became less controllable:

I was so angry that I told myself that to solve this, “I really need to be under the influence of alcohol.” (A014, p. 3, 3-4)

. . . . the alcohol just made things worse for me . . . it didn’t help me as I thought. (A014, p. 4, 12-13)

The victim is also blamed if they are thought to be planning to leave the relationship. As one participant implies, it is not so much the ending of the relationship that is the problem, rather that the woman seems to be taking control of that decision:

I was thinking how can she come to such a decision when we didn’t even discuss it? I would think, after discussing our problems, then I can decide to break up with her . . . but we didn’t even talk about what was going on . . . (A014, p. 5, 1-6)

Finally, the victim is blamed for starting the attack that was eventually fatal. Crucially, we are not able to distinguish times when the woman may have become aggressive as part of self-defense as opposed to initiating the use of a weapon:

. . . she was walking towards me with a her knife aiming to attack me, I immediately threw her with that small hammer aiming to hit the knife so that it falls down but I unfortunately hit her somewhere in her head. . . . So I was trying to get the knife from her and in the midst of us fighting for the knife, it ended up stabbing her. (A011, p. 1, 20-23; p. 2, 3-4)

So I later pulled my girlfriend in the room, trying to get the knife off of her . . . she somehow managed to stab me with it and that’s when we started struggling with the knife and fighting . . . So I pushed her on the sofa and she came again wanting to stab me until I managed to pull the knife away from her. A few seconds after pulling the knife from her, she bent down and tightly started pulling my penis, she kept pulling it and so I beat her with my fist meanwhile she grabbed the knife from me . . . and I wasn’t drunk or anything but I became very angry so I grabbed the knife back and started stabbing her with it . . . (A021, p. 8, 16-25; p. 9, 1)

Just when I finished talking then she slapped me in my face and that’s when we started arguing and fighting. As we were busy fighting, we both ended up falling, she fell first and I fell on top of her, unfortunately she fell on a big sharp stone that injured her head and she later died of head injury. (A015, p. 3, 1-5)

Victims are not the only source of blame. In one case, the police were blamed for refusing to become involved in an argument between the participant and his girlfriend, and one participant blamed the male whom his partner was cheating with. However, the two other most common areas of blame are friends of the victim and the influence of witchcraft.

Blaming the victim’s friends

Friends are blamed for being a bad influence within the relationship. Although not identified by participants as the primary cause of the IPV, it is presented as being important to understand how the relationship started to become more difficult. Where friends are blamed, it is apparent that this is again linked to a sense of loss of control of the woman, both in relation to her behavior and to her thinking;

. . . she had too many friends and they always came to pick her up to go and drink alcohol, when I say no to her, her friends manipulate her into thinking that I’m preventing her from having fun, so she goes anyways just to prove a point . . . hmmm, we use to fight a lot about this. (A010, p. 1, 13-18)

The relationship was okay, but later on she found some friends and she started picking up bad behaviours from them. Like asking me about where I was when I come home late when she never used to do that, and later we started not understanding each other very well in our relationship. (A019, p. 1, 12-16)

. . . I think my girlfriend’s friend influenced her to have bad manners and maybe about the witchcraft things. (A019, p. 8, 1-2)

Whereas the victim’s friends are considered to result in a loss of control of the victim, the participants’ friends and family are a source of advice to maintain control and further suggest how both women and aggression are viewed in this sample:

My friends used to tell me that beating her is the only way to show her how to respect you, don’t let her answer you back, she will get used to it and see you as weak. A little beating once in a while doesn’t hurt. (A008, p. 1, 19-22)

. . . my parents also came to know about my cheating from her and they advised me to at least make sure that when I do cheat, that I should do it careful enough that my girlfriend doesn’t find out or get to know the other girl as she did with this one, that way I can avoid problems with her. (A020, p. 2, 22-24; p. 3, 1-2)

Cheating and beating appear to be acceptable for males, the cheating is the normal behavior for males and the beating is also acceptable as a response to a woman angering a man:

Yes, whenever I’m angry with her, I always beat her up but not to a severe case, usually just slaps, never with any objects. (A020, p. 4, 1-2)

Blaming witchcraft

As described in the “Introduction” section, witchcraft is a feature of Namibian culture and is raised as a source of mitigation in legal cases and for explaining adverse events, such as ill-health. Some participants blamed witchcraft. This takes two forms, either the victim was attempting to bewitch the participant for a negative outcome or the victim had been bewitched, and this explained her behavior (which was to blame for the eventual IPV), both linked to loss of control of the victim. Within any culture that might identify paranormal phenomena as playing a role in life, it would be useful to examine the extent to which people believe it against the extent to which it offers a convenient source of explanation when required. As we did not know at the outset that witchcraft might be part of our data, we have not explored this dichotomy.

I was thinking “maybe she wants to bewitch me or something” . . . I used to hear about ladies bewitching their husband or boyfriend to die or become insane so that they can inherit the money or cars etc. so I’m thinking she wanted to do the same thing to me and I was afraid of that. (A019, p. 2, 11; p. 7, 14-17)

Sometimes I think maybe her neighbour bewitched her for this incident to happen . . . this is what I think, if not her neighbour, then maybe someone else, I just think somehow witchcraft was at play in this situation . . . because I really can’t begin to understand how this happened . . . I also know that she used to tell me that she consults a traditional healer for her health problems but now I’m starting to think maybe she was consulting a witchdoctor. (A011, p. 2, 7-17)

It is plausible that witchcraft offers an explanation for circumstances that cannot be rationally explained within the prevailing culture, that a woman would cheat on a man, that a woman would leave a man, or that a woman would show independence of thought or action.

Responsibility

Despite the presence of data that suggest the participants in this sample are identifying external influences for their behavior, there is also evidence of taking responsibility for their aggression and violence. Responsibility in this sample takes three forms. The first implies that the participant is responsible for their actions but not the eventual outcome, as also indicated by the earlier quote which recognizes a responsibility for fighting but the victim’s death is described as due to her falling on a rock. Furthermore, examples of this type of responsibility indicate that participants were planning to cause harm, but rather than with an intent to kill, an intent to “injure,” or an intent to teach a lesson. As stabbing is the most frequent form of attack in this sample, this may imply a lack of understanding of the severity of knife attacks.

Even when I stabbed her, I was just thinking I’m injuring her, not killing her. (A017, p. 6, 18-19)

I didn’t talk, I just took a knife and started stabbing her. I was thinking, let me show her . . . (A013, p. 9, 6-9)

The second identified form of responsibility suggests that the participants viewed their behavior as the only remaining option:

. . . fighting for me was the only way out. I didn’t talk to her or the guy when I saw them in the shack, I just started stabbing. (A010, p. 2, 17-19)

. . . I had decided that I cannot take this situation anymore, I made a decision to just kill her. To me that was the only option left. (A014, p. 4, 2-4)

This might imply that the men had exhausted all other options in untenable circumstances; however, as is clear, the situations were typically objectively uncomfortable rather than untenable, and there is little evidence that the participants had tried and failed in other attempts to resolve their relationship issues. Although some men did speak to others (such as the victim’s parents, the police, the victim’s friends), this was to request these others enforce control as a solution to the concerns that the participants had.

The third form of responsibility is acknowledging the presence of anger, thus responding to the situation by becoming angry and not finding ways to de-escalate it. However, despite acknowledging the presence of anger, there is a tendency to displace responsibility by perceiving it as beyond control; I am responsible for becoming angry, but I am not responsible for what the anger makes me do:

I think the anger took over and made me blank. (A010, p. 2, 15-16)

. . . the anger was too much . . . I couldn’t control it. (A013, p. 9, 1)

Throughout this sample, where the participants identify responsibility it is not absolute but qualified. This mitigation of responsibility has been identified in other accounts of violence and highlighted as an impediment to effective intervention (Coates & Wade, 2007).

Discussion

This research has focused on the male killing of female intimate partners in Namibia with the aim of exploring how the men conceptualize their behavior. By doing so, we seek to contribute to a broader understanding of the global phenomenon of IPH and identify possible targets for intervention and prevention.

Limitations

There is always a concern in qualitative studies; whether participants provide a true reflection of their understanding of the circumstances and factors surrounding their thinking and behavior, perhaps more so with individuals convicted of serious offences—and we would suggest that further research remains to be undertaken to elaborate on such concerns. In the current study, we are aware of one example of a participant manipulating his account. However, as frequently the only remaining account of IPH will be from the perpetrator, they remain a vital source of information in understanding IPH and developing methods to prevent it. In addition, our data are from a limited pool of volunteers, which may bias the findings, and as IPA is an interpretive method, the possibility of subjectivity of the analysts must be borne in mind.

The Findings

Despite these limitations, it appears that a primary cause of IPH lies in the negative beliefs and attitudes that devalue women, which are not peculiar to Namibian society (Orelus, 2010). Contrary to previous findings (Costa & Babcock, 2008), our data suggest that sexist beliefs and jealousy are implicated along with an overriding sense of losing control of one’s partner. The expectation that men should be free to behave as they like whereas women’s behavior should be bounded does seem to result in frustration and relationship stress, as identified by Showalter and colleagues (1980). Here though, it may not be linked to the man’s maternal relationships but to the prevailing social view that appears to be supported by the men’s friends and families.

Despite implicit social support for men’s controlling behavior, our sample blames other external influences for their behavior, a tendency that has been previously identified (Dobash & Dobash, 2011). Predominantly, it is the victim’s fault, which supports the work of Exner and Thurston (2009) who identified that female victims are frequently blamed for challenging a patriarchal society. Here the victim may have also been influenced by her friends or witchcraft. Victim blaming is frequently found in the conceptualization of antisocial behavior against women, including domestic violence (Henning & Holdford, 2006) and rape (Grubb & Turner, 2012), and has been identified as a factor in dropping out from treatment (Daly & Pelowski, 2000). Although some researchers have looked at the general influence of friends or peers on domestic violence, such as Minter (2014), the influence of friends of the victim has received less attention. The current research has highlighted the potential importance of examining how perpetrators perceive their partners’ other relationships and the extent to which these are perceived as challenges because they undermine the perpetrator’s masculinity, power, or the primary status of the perpetrator–victim relationship. In addition, this research identified another important aspect to consider, witchcraft. Although little is known about the specifics of witchcraft within this particular community, because of the sensitivity surrounding it, it appears to be important and thus, an area of valuable research focus (Hiltunen, 1993). Claims of witchcraft in Namibia seem to be used in attempts to solicit lenient sentences by the perpetrator and thus could be a means of reducing responsibility for individual actions. At the same time, victims appear to have solicited help from witchdoctors to address their relationship problems, which is an issue due to the perceptions of the power of witchcraft by the men and more broadly, society. Within the context of Namibian society, where witchcraft is frequently presented to the courts and reported in the media, it is important to tease out the strength of the belief in witchcraft versus the pragmatics of using it as an excuse. Indeed, the importance of witchcraft throughout Africa requires more attention (Thomas, 2007). In addition, in some cultures witchcraft is used by victims to explain the behavior of perpetrators. For example, in the Peruvian Andes, there are examples where victims of IPV blame their partner’s behavior on witchcraft (see Harvey & Gow, 1994).

Where the men do identify responsibility for their actions, it is tempered; their intentions were to harm not kill, they were out of control, or there was no other course of action available. The men present their behavior as spontaneous or opportunistic rather than premeditated, contrasting with previous work (e.g., Adams, 2007) in the United States where most intimate partner murders are viewed as premeditated. This raises an important cultural issue of how crime is understood, what are the factors that might identify premeditation, and how the different legal systems differentiate between crimes seen as spontaneous or premeditated. It is possible that this difference also links to the research found regarding weapon use. In the U.S. study, the majority of participants used a gun to kill their partner; in Namibia, the weapon of choice in this sample is a knife. This difference may be associated with the availability of guns in the United States, as described by Swahn, Hammig, and Ikeda (2002), whereas in Africa, in Namibia in particular, traditional weapons including knives are more readily available as they are used to symbolize manhood (Uukunde, 2012). Similarly, 50% of the participants here report being under the influence of substances during the commission of their offences compared with the United States, where more than 80% of Adams’s (2007) participants were under the influence of substances. The fact that our sample present with an intention to harm, frequently through stabbing, raises an interesting issue which centers on the nature of knife use in Namibia. If the men really are intending to inflict harm, then we might expect a different pattern of wounds on the victim than if killing was the primary intent, and this may be valuable information for being able to examine men’s behavior and justifications during treatment.

As found in Elisha et al.’s (2010) study, the men in our sample tend to see themselves as victims, either of external factors such as their partner, their partner’s friends, or witchcraft, or internal circumstances such as anger, alcohol, or not knowing of other ways to resolve their circumstances, and the women are often perceived as having challenged the patriarchal structure of Namibian society. Although physical force is perceived as appropriate within relationships, the killings are perceived as unplanned and frequently beyond the control of the men, who are variously jealous or fearful of abandonment. Overall, there is a sense of loss of control of one’s relationship and behavior, to be blamed on a variety of factors other than themselves or their society. The challenge is to find ways to challenge these beliefs to reduce recidivism, and more widely in society, so as not to support social structures that may provoke IPH as an appropriate response. Due to the limited literature on IPH in Africa, it is clear that further studies are required to both understand the individual and societal factors that may lead to some men being vulnerable to such actions, and inform governmental agencies as to the best course of action to prevent future instances of IPH. With this latter point in mind, our findings could have important implications for prevention programs in Namibia. For example, our work indicates the need for further investigation into specific cultural beliefs surrounding this violence (such as witchcraft) and implies that preventive programs should be tailored according to cultural beliefs and attitudes of African societies, rather than adopting programs that are Western in origin; it is key to ensure that the culturally specific needs of the people involved are reflected.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Simon Duff is a deputy director of forensic programmes at the University of Nottingham, UK and a practicing forensic psychologist with Merseycare NHS Trust in Liverpool. He has interests in stalking, sexual offending, pornography, and violence.

Mirjam Nampweya is a graduate student from Swansea University and works in the parole service in Namibia.

Jeremy Tree is an associate professor and director of Research at Swansea University.

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