What
are the Physical, Sexual, Emotional and Economical abuses and what is the
protection order
Domestic
violence against men deals with domestic violence experienced by men or boys in
a relationship such as marriage, cohabitation, dating, or within a family. As
with domestic violence against women, violence against men may constitute a
crime, but laws vary between jurisdictions.
Socio-cultural
norms regarding the treatment of men by women, and women by men differ
depending on the geographic region, and physically abusive behavior by one
partner towards another is regarded varying as a serious crime to a more
personal matter.
Whereas
women who experience domestic violence are openly encouraged to report it to
the authorities, it has been argued that men who experience such violence often
encounter pressure against reporting, with those that do facing social stigma
regarding their perceived lack of machismo and other denigration of their
masculinity.
Additionally,
intimate partner violence (IPV) against men is generally less recognized by
society than IPV against women, which can act as a further block to men
reporting their situation.
The
prevalence and frequency of IPV against men is highly disputed, with different
studies showing different conclusions for different nations, and many countries
having no data at all. Some researchers believe the actual number of male
victims is likely to be greater than law enforcement statistics suggest due to
the high number of men who do not report their abuse.[4]
IPV
against men is a controversial area of research, with terms such as gender
symmetry, battered husband syndrome and bidirectional IPV provoking a great
deal of debate. One of the main tools used to find statistical evidence of male
victims of IPV (as well as female victims of IPV), the conflict tactics scale,
has been heavily criticized, and heavily defended.
Types of domestic violence
Domestic
violence can take a variety of forms and generally includes the following acts:
Physical
abuse
Any
act or threat of physical violence intended to cause physical pain, injury,
suffering or bodily harm. Physical abuse can include hitting, slapping,
punching, choking, pushing and any other type of contact that results in
physical injury to the victim. Physical abuse can also include behaviors such
as denying the victim medical care when needed, depriving the victim of sleep
or other functions necessary to live, or forcing the victim to engage in
drug/alcohol use against his/her will. It can also include inflicting physical
injury onto other targets, such as children or pets, in order to cause
psychological harm to the victim.
Sexual
abuse
Any
conduct that abuses, humiliates, degrades or otherwise violates the sexual
integrity of the victim. Sexual abuse is any situation in which force or threat
is used to obtain participation in unwanted sexual activity. Coercing a person
to engage in sexual activity against their will, even if that person is a spouse
or intimate partner with whom consensual sex has occurred previously, is an act
of aggression and violence.
Sexual
violence is defined by the World Health Organization as: any sexual act,
attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts
to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion,
by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting,
including but not limited to home and work.
Marital
rape, also known as spousal rape, is non-consensual sex in which the
perpetrator is the victim’s spouse. As such, it is a form of partner rape, and
amounts to domestic violence and sexual abuse. Marital rape has been described
as one of the most serious violations of a women’s bodily integrity and yet it
is a term that many people still have a problem comprehending, with some still
describing it as a ‘contradiction in terms’.
Emotional,
verbal and psychological abuse
Usually
a pattern of degrading or humiliating conduct towards the victim privately or
publicly, including repeated insults, ridicule, name calling and/or repeated
threats to cause emotional pain; or the repeated exhibition of obsessive
possessiveness or jealousy, which is such as to constitute a serious invasion
of the victim’s privacy, liberty, integrity and/or security.
Other
acts that fall under emotional abuse include controlling what the victim can
and cannot do, withholding information from the victim, deliberately doing
something to make the victim feel diminished or embarrassed, isolating the
victim from friends and family, implicitly blackmailing the victim by harming
others when the victim expresses independence or happiness, and denying the
victim access to money or other basic resources and necessities.
Emotional
abuse includes conflicting actions or statements that are designed to confuse
and create insecurity in the victim. These behaviors lead victims to question
themselves, causing them to believe that they are making up the abuse or that
the abuse is their fault.
Emotional
abuse also includes forceful efforts to isolate the victim, to keep them from
contacting friends or family. This is intended to eliminate those who might try
to help the victim leave the relationship and to create a lack of resources for
the victim to rely on if they were to leave. Isolation eventually damages the
victim’s sense of internal strength, leaving them feeling helpless and unable
to escape from the situation. Women and men undergoing emotional abuse often
suffer from depression, which puts them at increased risk for suicide, eating
disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse.
Economic
abuse
Includes
the unreasonable deprivation of economic or financial resources to which the
victim is entitled under law or requires out of necessity, including household
necessities, mortgage bond repayments, rent money in the case of a shared
residence, and/or the unreasonable disposal of household effects or other
property in which the victim has an interest.
Economic
abuse may involve preventing a victim from resource acquisition, limiting the
amount of resources available to him/her, or exploiting the victim’s economic
resources. The motive behind preventing a victim from acquiring resources is to
diminish his/her capacity to support him/herself, thus forcing the victim to
depend on the perpetrator financially. In this way, the perpetrator can prevent
the victim from obtaining education, finding employment, maintaining or
advancing a career and acquiring assets. The abuser may also put the victim on
an allowance and closely monitor how he/she spends money. Sometimes the abuser
will spend the victim’s money without his/her consent and create debt, or even
completely spend the victim’s savings to limit available resources.
Intimidation
Uttering
or conveying a threat, or causing a victim to receive a threat, which induces
fear. The abuser may use a variety of intimidation tactics designed to scare
the victim into submission. Such tactics may include smashing things in front
of the victim, destroying property, hurting the victim’s pets or showing off a
weapon. The clear message is that if the victim doesn’t obey, there might be
violent consequences.
Harassment
Engaging
in a pattern of conduct that induces a fear of harm in the victim, including
repeatedly watching the victim; loitering outside of or near the building/place
where the victim resides, works, carries out business, studies or happens to
be; repeatedly making telephone calls or inducing another person to make
telephone calls to the victim, whether or not conversation ensues; repeatedly
sending, delivering or causing the delivery of letters, emails, texts, packages
or other objects to the victim.
Stalking
there
is no real legal definition of stalking. Neither is there any specific
legislation to address this behavior. The term is used to define a particular
kind of harassment. Generally, it refers to a long-term pattern of persistent
and repetitive contact with, or attempts to contact, a particular victim.
Examples
of the types of conduct often associated with stalking include: direct
communication; physical following; indirect contact through friends, work
colleagues, family or technology (email or SMS); and other intrusions into the
victim’s privacy. The abuse may also take place on social networks like Facebook,
on-line forums, Twitter, instant messaging, SMS, BBM or via chat software. The
stalker may use websites to post offensive material, create fake profiles or
even make a dedicated website about the victim.
Damage
to property
Willful
damaging or destruction of property belonging to the victim or in which the
victim has a vested interest.
Entry
into property
Entry
into the victim’s residence without consent, where the parties do not share the
same residence.
Any
other controlling or abusive behavior
Any
conduct that harms, or may cause imminent harm to, the safety, health or
well-being of the victim. ‘Imminent harm’ includes situations where:
the
perpetrator is in the possession of a firearm and has threatened to use the
firearm against the victim, or her dependents or other family members;
the
perpetrator has used a weapon against the victim in previous incidences of
domestic violence (not restricted to dangerous weapons, such as firearms or
knives);
the
victim was critically injured by the perpetrator on a previous occasion, or on
the occasion in question;
the
victim and her children have been ‘kicked out’ of the shared residence by the
perpetrator or anyone affiliated with him;
the
victim has sufficient evidence (i.e. witness statements) that the perpetrator
has threatened to harm her; and
The
victim fears for the safety of her children.
The
protection order
A
protection order, also called a restraining order or domestic violence
interdict, is a court order that tells an abuser to stop the abuse and sets
certain conditions preventing the abuser from harassing or abusing the victim
again. It may also help ensure that the abuser continues to pay rent or a bond
or interim maintenance. The protection order may also prevent the abuser from
getting help from any other person to commit abusive acts.
For
further information contact Alliance Against Domestic violence and Human Rights
offices in the Gambia, email to drhassanazadeh1@gmail.com, text only to Dr
Azadeh on 00220 7774469/3774469 from 3-6 week days.
Author
DR AZADEH Senior Lecturer at the University of the Gambia, Senior Consultant in
Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Clinical Director at Medicare Health Services.
