Domestic Violence Against Women

By Anjam Khan

In our society, domestic violence is a significant issue. The social, cultural, political, legal and economic influences of the area merge their effect on the insecurity of women as a result of community-sanctioned brutality. Domestic violence means the domestic partner's intimate bullying, physical abuse, sexual attack and/or other violent behavior. Violence towards women is often followed by verbally manipulative behavior, which also forms part of a systemic trend of domination and power. Injury, psychiatric distress and occasionally death occur from domestic abuse. Domestic abuse can have implications for centuries that can really continue for a lifetime. The Bangladeshi women's rights movement has helped the community in the last two decades to raise concern about violence towards women and, in particular, domestic violence.

'Violence is the deliberate use of brute ability or influence, threat or legit contender, toward oneself, someone else or against such a group or society that leads to an accident, death, psychological damage, growth or poverty, or is highly likely to do so. Abuse of women is defined as any act of gender-based violence resulting in or likely to cause a harm to women from physical, sexual or psychological damage including threats of violence, harassment and remoter of rights, whether in public or private live, as described by the 1993 resolution on the elimination of violence against women (1993).

Domestic Violence: -

In a family or household partnership, domestic violence happens when one person attempts to intimidate or dominate another person. Domestic violence can lead to physical violence, sexual harassment, emotional or psychological abuse, abusive behavior, stalking and bullying, social and geographical alienation, financial misuse, domestic abuse or property damages or violent threats in such a manner. Men against women continue to perpetuate domestic abuse in most instances. Domestic violence includes any act of violence, whether or not such a survivor's portion of or has occupied the very same residence with the offender is physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence inside the home unit or between former or current spouse or spouses.

Emotional Abuse:-

The misuse of emotion can be either verbal or nonverbal. This is the main type of female aggression. Emotional violence involves physical abuse such as shouting, calling names, blame and shame. Isolation, bullying, threats of aggression and behavior management.

Physical Abuse:-

A wide spectrum of behaviors, including acts including head-butting; slapping; striking; chewing; rubbing; kicking; tearing out the hair; shooting; burning and stabbing, fall under the heading of actual assault.

Sexual Abuse:-

In dysfunctional marriages, rape and sexual assault happen because the right of women to consent is probably denied. Sexual abuse is any condition where a person is forced to indulge in unnecessary, unhealthy or degrading sexual behavior. In general, the risk of frequent and worsening attacks in women who use them violently and sexually harass them is believed to be greater.

Economic or Financial Abuse:-

The objective of economic or financial violence is to restrict the right of a survivor to seek assistance. Tactics can include financial control, withholding funds, unreasonably accounting for money expended/gasoline spent, exploitation of cash, retention of simple needs, stopping somebody from working, intentionally carrying debt, causing someone to work against their own will, trying to sabotage the work of someone.

Honor based violence:-

Honor based violence (HBV) is a type of domestic violence that occurs in the name of "Honor." HBV can involve a woman with a boyfriend; deny afforded marriage, interreligious relations; pursue separation, insufficient clothes or make-up, and even kiss in public. There may be HBV in all cultures or communities in which men may develop and implement women's behavior: South Asian, Turkish, Afghan, African, Middle eastern, Southern and Eastern European, India, Pakistan etc. Examples include South Asian. However, in Bangladesh not at the drastic stages.

Domestic abuse during pregnancy:-

Domestic violence is a global public health issue with severe maternal and child health implications. In cases of rape, abdominal, breast and genital injuries are normal during breastfeeding. Domestic violence is also a major factor in maternal and newborn death and morbidity. Placental isolation, fetal fractures, antepartum hemorrhage, break-up of the user and before-term labor may also be the result of pregnancy abuse. Implicit sewers of abuse affect a woman's and her baby's wellbeing through unhealthy diets and limited access to prenatal treatment. Although strangers or associates can continue to commit harassment, stalking by the former or present spouses is often committed against women. Any stalking allegations must be taken extremely seriously because they mean a rise in the risk of physical injury or murder.

Reasons for Domestic Violence: -

There are three common ways to explaining the causes of domestic violence researchers. 

First, psychological models analyze human attackers and how their traits increase the probability of domestic abuse. The biological makeup of a human batterer during puberty, the personal impairment and the social environment are important as factors of domestic abuse.

Second, family-oriented analysis, offered primarily by sociologists, has used single variables to understand whether a certain family unit could erupt into violence. Here structure of a family, family separation from other families of society and a detailed discussion as domestic abuse leading factors.

Thirdly, many feminists are examining the roots of domestic abuse by using a micro-level approach. They contend that women's oppression is systemic and persistently visible within patriarchal cultures. Domestic abuse supporting factors:

Cultural:

i. Gender-specific socialization;

ii. Belief in the inherent superiority of males;

iii. Values that give men proprietary rights over women and girls;

iv. Notion of the family as the private sphere and under male control;

v. Customs of marriage (dowry)

vi. Acceptability of violence as a means to resolve conflict;

Economic:

i. Women’s economic dependence on men;

ii. Limited access to cash and credit;

iii. Non-implementation of laws regarding inheritance, property rights, and maintenance after

divorce or widowhood;

iv. Limited access to employment in formal and informal sectors;

v. Limited access to education and training for women

Legal:

i. Lesser the legal status of women by practice;

ii. Limitations of laws regarding divorce, child custody, maintenance, and inheritance;iii. Limitations of legal definitions of rape and domestic abuse;

iv. Low levels of legal literacy among women;

v. Insensitive treatment of women and girls by police and the judiciary;

Political:

i. Under-representation of women in power, politics, the media and in the legal and medical

professions;

ii. Domestic violence not taken seriously;

iii. Limited organization of women as a political force;

iv. Limited participation of women in an organized political system.

Consequences of Domestic Violence: -

Countries are being increasingly recognized that, as long as they refuse to engage entirely in their society, women can’t fully achieve their ability. Violence's societal, economic and health costs data undoubtedly hinder momentum for human and economic development in the face of violence against women. In all social development programmers, women's presence has become essential, be it for the climate, the alleviation of poverty or good governance. By hindering women's full engagement, countries erode half their people's human resources. A country's contribution to gender equity has true benchmarks in its efforts to eradicate abuse against women in all its manifestations and all spheres of life. The violation of the basic human rights of women can be the main effect of domestic abuse. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), introduced in 1979, and adopted in 1979, uphold the ideals of fundamental rights and liberties of every human being, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted in 1948.

Consequences in nucleus: -

i. Violence against women generates poverty.

ii. Violence against women hampers education.

iii. Violence against women imperils gender equality.

iv. Violence against women can kill infants.

v. Violence threatens the health of women and girls.

Cost of Domestic Violence: -

Domestic abuse costs was grouped into four sections by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) under the following framework:

1/Direct expense covers psychological advice and medical expenditure; police services: women's and their children's homes; and support .

2/No-monetary costs not based on health care but which, by increasing morbidity, death and murder by crime and suicide, increasing reliance on drugs, alcohol and other depressing conditions, have a heavy toll on victims' survivors themselves.

3/Effects on female employment declined and efficiency declined, and lower earnings have economic multiplier effects. In the United States, 30% of the battered women have been confirmed to have lost their jobs because of the violence.

Practical Scenario of Domestic Violence in Bangladesh:

UNDP reports 2000 show that 29% of females (over 15 years old) are literate, compared to 52.3% for males, the percentages of infant hood (age 7-10) in females are 41.5% as compared with 50.6% for males. In 1996, 83.90% of the boys enrolled in primary school, compared to 78% for girls. In 1999, the girl's enrolment rate slightly improved to 79.7% compared with 76.7% for kids. Studies have shown that about 10000-20000 men are trafficked every year by Bangladeshi women, many of whom are children (CEDAW, Shadow Report, 2003). Approximately 40,000 women from Bangladesh in Pakistan serve as sex workers. The scale is such that in 2002 (The Independent, 2002) and 2003, Bangladesh was the second and third most important in the world in terms of various forms of violence against women; and 65 percent of the Bangladeshi men considered women to have been beaten as well. Odhikar, an organization in Bangladesh of human rights alliance, said that 278 women were the victims of duty-based abuse in the first nine months of 2003 in Bangladesh, of which 184 were killing, 20 committed suicide, 67 violently abused, 11 suffered acid attack injuries and 2 divorced. Accommodating 60 percent of Bangladeshi women witness pomiform domestic abuse in their lives, according to new studies from the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research (2006). One stop crisis center, a non-governmental organization located in Bangladesh to help female victims The Bangladeshi-based NGO Ovalene Stop Crisis Center, which provides assistance for female victims of rape, has shown that nearly 70 per cent of women's sexual abuses occur in their homes. This study found that 87% of husband women had all kinds of brutality, 65% had physical violence, 36% had sexual abuse, 82% had emotional violence, 53% had economic violence. This figure is based on the survey. The women's right-wing organization' "AMRA PARI" administered a poll in seven branches, 96.25% of women were bitten, their husbands were reviled, 95,63% of women were routinely exposed to mental pressure. The house of their husbands risk 92.92 percent. The kick and hit tortured 93.13 percent. Stick torture accounted for 91,25%. In study, 55% of women were willing to justify family abuse firmly (domestic violence). 43% of women would also advocate abuse in their families.

The writer is a student of English and Modern Language department at North South University.