IJFS - Interdisciplinary Journal of Family Studies

The present work analyses some risk factors of domestic violence against women. In particular, the experience that childhood abuse either experienced directly or witnessed by women or their partners plays. Data comes from a wide victimization survey carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics, devoted to gathering data on acts of physical and sexual violence inflicted on women by partners and non partners. The analysis confirms the results from literature about re-victimization and intergenerational transmission of violence: experiences of physical or sexual violence in childhood inflicted by parents or close relatives, can be considered a risk factor for becoming a victim,(women), or a perpetrator,(men), of violence in later adult intimate relationships.