Domestic Violence: Causes, Effects and Remedies

Running head: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 1
Domestic Violence
Name
Institution

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 2
Domestic Violence
According to World Health Organization (2012), domestic violence entails all kind of
mistreatments, which occurs to people in heterosexual or homosexual relationship either adults
or adolescents. However, the term can also encompass child abuse by other family member of a
household. Domestic violence also referrers to intimate partner violence (IPV). The rates of
partners’ violence over the years have increased ranging from sexual abuse, physical violence,
emotional violence, and controlling behaviors. Therefore IPV outlines the harmful relationship
habits, which cause stress, injury to the victims in a relationship. Nevertheless, through some
case studies, this paper tries to clearly identify the causes of IPV, effects on the victims, and
possible remedies used to alleviate their pain. Disagreements are inevitable due to the changes in
life and partners should learn to be accommodative of each other to reduce the high numbers of
domestic violence in the society.
In the video ‘Behind Closed Doors’ produced by True Vision Production (2015), shows
the violence crimes, which occur in families but some go unnoticed as the victims are not willing
to press charges. According to this video, the majority of the victims are women, who get abused
by their husbands. In the first case study, Sabrina and her husband Paul Hopkins are married for
5 years. It is disturbing to note that for all the 4 years Paul has been abusing her without being
charged. Sabrina does not sue him for the physical violence, which includes slapping, hitting,
kicking, and beating he gets from his husband. She ignores the abuses and due to her great love
to him she does not wish to report him. However, it is until April 20th 2015, when the police
intervene to save Sabrina from his husband after being physically abused for about six hours.
Despite, the police hearing the whole incident, she is still not willing to admit that it was his
husband, who abused her. According to DI Larry form the Domestic Abuse Investigation unit,
about 43% of the cases they deal with are repeated cases as a result of women withdrawing the

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charges despite being abused by their spouses. This case of Sabrina was one of the repeated
cases. The abuse made by Paul resulted to him being sentenced for 13months. Luckily, this time
round Sabrina was able to move on with her life without him.
The second case is between Helen and his 10 years husband Lawrence. She was
undergoing physical, emotional abuses and controlling behavior from his husband. They had
lived well without conflicts until they got a son. However, Lawrence started to control her by
making demands to her and being angry for nothing, which ended up to him beating, slapping,
hitting, and kicking her. She reported the issue to the authorities and was given a restraining
order. However, her husband was stubborn and did not obey the court orders. He kept o sending
her insulting messages, calls humiliating her. He used the excuse of checking on his son to
pretend they were in good terms, when she reported the abuse to the police. He was unable to be
arrested as Helen met with him in a hotel prior to pressing charges. During this time the
Domestic Violence and Abuse unit helped her to get justice, which led to Lawrence being found
guilty of harassment with violence. He was imprisoned for 4 months with a fine of 1000pounds.
Finally, the case of Jemma and Dwayne her Ex-girlfriend showed the animosity among
partners due to anger and frustration of failed relationship. She was abused physically by her ex-
boyfriend, who despite being informed by her that the relationship was over kept on coming to
her house anytime he wanted. The incident made Jemma afraid of what might happen to her
children if he abuses her in front of them. According to Durand, Schraiber, França-Junior, &
Barros (2011), IPV affects children behaviors during their growth and development. Therefore,
she hired an expert to help them know how to protect themselves. The abuse made him get
sentenced for 7 years in prison for Grievous body harm to her with intent. According to Breuer,
& Elson (2017), they talked about the Frustration–Aggression Theory as a cause of domestic