Gender-based violence is the most extreme expression of unequal gender relations in society that poses a severe reproductive and maternal health consequence. Around 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point in their lives. The overall objective of this study is to identify the impact of gender based violence on women’s reproductive health in the Amhara Region. The study employed a quantitative research method with community based cross-sectional research design. The researcher employed a multi-stage-sampling sampling technique to select 415 sample respondents and to select 10 Woredas from zones. The collected data is analyzed via descriptive statistics and One sample t-test. The results demonstrated that, 179 (43.1%) of the respondents experienced gender based violence in the last 12 months, while 236 (56.9%) of them didn’t experienced. Most of (32%) the respondents faced psychological violence while the least scored violence (21.9%) is social violence. One sample t-test also shows that there is a strong and significance difference between respondents that experiencing and witnessing of any reproductive health problem due to violence in last 12 months at p<0.01(t=36.738,df 413, Sig. 2-tailed .000). As the finding of this study, gender based violence has a severe impact on women’s reproductive health problems such as premature mortality, lacerations, fractures, homicide, gastrointestinal disorders, depression and anxiety. It can be concluded that, gender based violence have a negative impact on women’s reproductive and maternal health in the Amhara Region. Therefore, the regional state and women’s affairs bureaus and offices should work on awareness transference for the society about the problem of gender based violence, and women should struggle for their right to prevent and response gender based violence and other reproductive health problems.
Keywords: Gender based violence, Reproductive health, Reproductive health problems, Women