Comprehensive Report on Domestic Violence Against Women

This report examines domestic violence against women, defining it as gender-based violence and highlighting the various forms of abuse, including physical, sexual, emotional, and economic abuse. The report explores the vulnerability of women, the impact of domestic violence on their lives, and the extent of criminal victimization. It also analyzes the root causes of domestic violence, such as societal discrimination and inequality, and discusses the challenges faced by women in abusive relationships. The report further outlines the role of the criminal justice system, including legal acts, awareness programs, and the importance of early intervention. It also addresses the complexities of reporting domestic violence, including the reasons women may hesitate to seek help and the need for improvements in the legal system to provide better protection and justice for survivors. The report emphasizes the need for a multi-faceted approach to address domestic violence, including prevention, intervention, and support for victims.

Domestic Violence
towards Women

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
ASSESSMENT................................................................................................................................3
A) Domestic violence towards women.......................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Violence against women is also consider as gender based violence and such abuse is
generally the violent actions which are primarily committed against a woman or a girl. In fact,
sometimes, a woman face domestic violence because she is female and most of male dominant
society exploits them by pressurizing them, enforcing to do things against their wishes,
harassment and so on (Browne, 2016). Therefore, this assignment is going to highlight the facts
which help in showing the victimization of all the women. Along with this, it throws lights on
the extent vulnerability influences their experiences of criminal victimisation. Furthermore,
response of criminal justice system is also outlined in the report with the help of various
awareness programmes of government and legal Acts which help in protecting the people who
have faced domestic and other related violence’s. Thus, main objective of this project is to clear
all the facts or figures related with vulnerable situations a woman ever gone through.
ASSESSMENT
A) Domestic violence towards women
Domestic violence means abuse faced by a person particularly, woman in an intimate
relationship. It can be of many types that can include sexual, physical or even emotional abuse.
This term has two elements viz. “domestic” because it usually occurs in the homes and
“violence” is the intention to hurt or damage or kill someone by physical or verbal force. The
word “abuse” is common for both males and females, but domestic violence or abuse is majorly
connected with and focused on women. It can happen in both heterosexual and homosexual
relationships. It can also occur against children, parents or the elderly (Devries and et. al., 2013).
The domestic violence can be in various forms such as verbal, physical, economic, religious,
reproductive and sexual abuse. Further, female genital mutilation and throwing acid resulting in
physical damage or death are also a part of such abuse. In UK and many other parts of the world,
it is considered a “severe criminal offence” but some countries like South Africa have the highest
statistics of gender-based violence in the world (Øverlien, 2010).
The abusive relationships are the outcomes of imbalance power and control. In such a
scenario, a person uses hurtful words, behaves in a way to control or intimidate his respective
partner. These kinds of relationships should be identified before the situation turn unfortunate,
also prompt actions against such violence should be taken before it gets too late. There are many
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features of an abusive relationship which forms a basis for judging whether the relationship is
actually abusive or not. It has been observed that, many women during their pregnancy face
domestic violence and statistics of such cases in UK is 4.3% (Smart, 2013). Domestic abuse in
pregnancy may affect the fetus or may have lasting effect on the health of the child after the
birth. Similarly, such violence against men cannot be left unnoticed and is a serious social
problem (Johnson, 2016). Whenever we hear the word “domestic violence”, the first thing that
comes to our mind is “woman”. But men have also been victims of this abuse. As discussed
above, that a child or even a family could also be a target of the abuser. A child growing up in
abusive homes is expected to have similar behaviour and in some cases that behaviour could get
more aggressive, threatening or even bloodthirsty. Such children tend to believe that domestic
violence is a normal part of relationships (Connell, 2017).
In the year 2017, the Office for National Statistics' research reported that over 10% of 16-
19 year-old women are affected by such issue each year. About 400 people commit suicide each
year who have been hospitalized for getting injured from domestic abuse. Further, it has been
estimated that the costs of such violence costs the public a whopping amount of £23billion per
annum. The root cause of this crime is the discrimination and inequality by the society on the
basis of gender. It has been often seen that, a woman face discrimination not only at her
workplace but also in the society (Maynard and Purvis, 2013). This increases the domestic
violence cases as men feel they are superior to women. There could be many challenges that are
faced by women in domestic violence cases and this affects their mental health, physical, sexual
and reproductive health. Furthermore, the over-all well being of the woman, her children and
whole family gets affected. Due to its negative impact on women's lives and on the overall
society it is considered as a matter of concerned that needs to be addressed to reduce such
incidents (García-Moreno, and et. al., 2015).
It is repetitive; life threatening and can destroy the lives of women and children. A
woman may choose to stay in a violent relationship because many reasons ranging from love to
terror. Further, the other reasons could be, they may lose a place to live and become homeless,
afraid to lose her children and others do not have the courage and confidence to move out of such
an abusive relationship. The extent of criminal victimisation is that, a men is physically more
powerful than a woman, so it becomes hard for a woman to reciprocate the actions when she gets
hit by her partner in domestic violence (Taillieu and Brownridge, 2010). Also, men do not have
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any fear because they are given more importance than women. Domestic abuses were high in
earlier times but the number of such incidents has reduced from the 21st century. Furthermore,
the other contribution that has led to influence the experience of criminal victimisation is that,
when a woman encounters such behaviour for the first time, she tries to find ways and strategies
to survive in the abusive relationship. During that period, the victim develop coping strategies,
by trying to enjoy and get busy in her daily routine and totally ignore the occurrence of any such
violence (Hall and Bucholtz, 2012).
Also, they try to change themselves and incorporate the changes their partner wants, this
may involve doing unwanted tasks, veil their own personalities or surrendering their choices of
doing job, cultural membership etc. Further, the prolonged exposure of such behaviour twists the
confidence of the victim which leads her to depression. The early recognition of an abusive
relationship often helps in finding the solution to such relationship. In earlier days, men used to
repeat the abusive behaviour frequently because there was lack of infrastructural resources and
also the judicial system was not that strong and effective (García-Moreno and et. al., 2013). The
women used to feel helpless and they did not have anyone to take help from or who can guide
them but now-a-days many NGOs have formed to help the domestic violence victims come out
of such situations and send their partner behind the bars for the violence and acts they did to
injure them. The victims should take help from the police and various judicial bodies as their
intervention will create fear among the people about the consequences of the domestic violence
(Radford and et. al., 2013).
Previous reports show that 38% murders are committed due to domestic violence towards
women. Around 7% women are being sexually assaulted and fail to discuss their problems with
others. These female are victims of such criminal activities. It is also fact that low level of
education, community norms etc. are major risk factors that increase domestic violence towards
women in society. Such kinds of activities are causing harm to ladies and they are facing several
health consequences. This form of violence is causing depression, post traumatic stress and many
other disorders in female (Choi and et. al., 2012).
The current judicial system has made major amendments in the existing laws as well as
implemented various new laws to protect and provide justice to the domestic violence survivors.
The major need for such changes was to make the victim report such matters so that proper and
immediate actions can be taken against the convicted abuser. The judicial system of a country
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plays a vital role in preventing the domestic violence issues. The women engaged with the justice
system as a part of ongoing process of resistance to men's violence and negotiation of safety of
themselves and their children (Herman, 2015).
Law provides a symbolic and material power to the women who have or are suffering the
domestic violence by intervening to control the violent behaviour of men. The process of judicial
system goes like this: an early and immediate protection is provided by the police to the victim
and the victim then files a case against the abuser in case there is no change in his behaviour and
the violence is not reduced. However, in most of the cases, a woman tries to maintain her
relationship and does not take actions against the violence which gives more power and courage
to her partner to do act more violently (Hossain and et. al., 2010). The domestic abuse becomes
more violent when the victim does not report the action promptly with the police. The main
objective of women for seeking help by invoking legal response is to put prevention on abuse
that may happen in future and not to punish their abusive partner. Hence, they hesitate to involve
police and judicial bodies because they fear the safety and well-being of themselves and their
children (Straus and et. al., 2017). This fear gets evolved in women due to their partner's
controlling behaviour. Further, a woman call the police only when the situation become badly
and they just want to warn the abuser as most of them do not want the police to arrest the abuser.
From the previous cases, it have been seen that women were again victimised by their
partner even after when their partner got released from the police custody. Apart from this, a
women fear to proceed with the prosecution due to the complex legal system and never ending
formalities. This process is time-consuming; thereby it takes number months to reach to a
decision by the court (MacKinnon, 2017). During the entire legal process, the survivor
continuous to face violence. Moreover, inappropriate charging practices under legal process
minimize effectiveness of the matter which in turn make the victim lose her interest in the case,
also there is lack of witness protection and insensitivity as it would leave a negative impact on
their partner which would increase their suffering. Further, the economic and other costs
involved, and the major concern that public exposure would adversely affect children and so on
(Htun and Weldon, 2012). Further, the victim often lack in required information and support.
There are many other factors that are the reasons, why women do not prefer to report to the
police or file a case with the court. The legal system in UK has to work on its legal system and
make it better for providing the justice to domestic violence victims. It can improve its legal
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system in many ways. First of all the system has to pass the judgements in a less-time consuming
manner for which it can have special fast track courts to wind up such cases. Further, the helpline
number provided by the police should be answered without any delay and in case of any such
case, a quick police protection should be given so that the survivors can have enough courage to
file a case against the abuse. Also, the victim should be given enough time to gather evidence for
proving their case; meanwhile their protection should continue to exist. In severe domestic
violence cases, the facility of immediate arrest without the notice should be provided. These
changes in the existing judicial system will give justice to the victims which in turn will reduce
such cases as there will be a fear in the abuser regarding the consequences of such violence
(Domestic violence, 2017).
In 2013, an analysis has been conducted by WHO in the UK school of Hygiene and
Tropical medicine, and similar analysis has been conducted in 80 nations. From the reports, it
has been found that, around 30% of the women who have been in relationships have all specific
experienced as sexual and other types of harassment by their partner (Pahl, 2016). The
prevalence has estimated to a wide range of income level nation and 24.6% in the WHO western
pacific areas to around 37% in the Eastern Mediterranean region. There are various factors those
are related with intimate person and sexual aspects which occurs at individual, family and large
number of society level. Few of them are associated with being a perpetrator of any incidental
harm with experiencing that violence in both office or any other place. There is specific
prevention that is growing with faster rate after studies looking at the effectiveness of prevention
towards the protection of women life. More resource are required to positive in response to
intimate partner and other violence that consists of primary prevention-stopping them from
occurring in the first place (Stanko, 2013).
It has been found that certain evidence from upper level of income nation that advocacy
and counselling intervention to make modification in accessing the service for surviving from
partner violence. In low resource setting, prevention strategies those are having seen to be related
with promising consist of empowers females economically and socially by a combination of
micro-finance and providing skilled training. It would be related with gender equality that can
promote communication and relationship skill within couples and communities which can
overcome harmful use of alcohol, transform harmful partner and social norms by community
mobilisation. In order to deal with women violence a multi-sectorial method associated with
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health sector has been playing vital role. The health sector can be related with advocate to face
women violence unacceptable and addressed as public related issues (World Health
Organization, 2013). Provide a well organise comprehensive services and train health care in
respond to survivors holistically and empathetically. Some other are reduce recurrence of
violence by early examination of women and child those are experiencing tough time as well as
provide them reliable referral and support to protect them from any kind of violence. WHO says
that building proper evidence which would be based on overall size and nature of violence in
relation to women in various setting proper support in the nation that can efforts to document and
measure this violence against the female. It is the central aspects to understand the overall
magnitude and nature of the issues initiating action in nations in domestic as well as national
level (Kelly and Westmarland, 2015).
Legislative measures to respond to needs of victims of domestic violence
In the year 1994, national organisation for Women has finally made certain plan that can
secure passage of the violence against female act. It would provide a breaking $ 1.6 billion to
deal with issues in relation to face issues of domestic violence against women. Moreover, it
would have taken additional year to implement the newt Gingrich –led congress to introduce the
funding. On the basis of specific analysis, it has been seen that first 6years to introduced after
Violence against Women Act (VAWA) was passed which is about $14.8billion. Many Women
are considered as partial to maintain domestic violence as secret because they are basically
related with the self-image and under proper constant depression (Reichenheim and et. al., 2011).
It has been found that a battered women is one of the case of domestic violence that can be
happens in case an individual gets marriage or intimate relationship tries to attempt to deal and
dominate the other people. National coalition in relation to domestic violence has aimed to
promote aims and mindsets in an individual and society that believes in ending cycles of harm
and violence. It has been declared that most of the violence in accordance to Women are arises
from the ambition to control as well as abuse specific power and overall mission to deal with
rules that can ensure certain change to reduce causes of damage to the women (Motz, 2016).
There is an example of violence against women, when a Spotlight has shown on the specific
issues which was related with the domestic violence in 1990s, a former professional sports
person was accused of and tried for, murdering his ex-wife “Nicole Simpson” as well as her
friends Goldman. It has been seen that the couple has already engaged with a history of reported
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domestic violence cases that consists of spousal battery and attacking death threats. However,
Nichole left the marriage; because from her side it was recorded that pattern of abuse was still
continued. The court has found Simpson acquitted of the murder charges, the views on this
particular issues of domestic violence was removed forever. The local judicial system of those
particular states was begun with making changes and law enforcement system to afford wider
protection in relation to the domestic violence against the women (Hague, Thiara and Mullender,
2011). It has been seen that any kind of unethical violence that are faced by the Women cannot
be tolerant or handled by the country. It would create negative impact on other women in
showing their talent in front of entire nation. This should be clear message to the people to avoid
their unusually perception towards the Women. By doing so the chances of overall development
in between their family and their child can also be getting enhance at the same point of time.
This would also helps in increasing the chances motivation among the Women to do their work
in effective manner in front of the world.
In the year 2013 Violence against women reauthorization act has been introduced. In this
legislation government has paid close attention on victim of domestic violence. This law
provides protection and support to female victims those who are being sexually assault. Such
kinds of legal measures aid in responding to such criminal activities and minimising such cases.
This would help in responding to the needs of women those who are sufferer of domestic
brutality (Maya Oppenheim, 2018).
Additionally, criminal Justice system is consists of three major parts such as; law
enforcement agencies generally were police. Secondly, courts that accompanying prosecution or
defence barristers. Lastly, agencies were available for detaining or supervising offenders like
prisons or probation agencies. Basically, police were usually concerned with maintaining peace
or enforcing laws of criminal that were based on specific mission or jurisdiction. This was
initiated from 1908 that is Federal Bureau of Investigation which begins as an association that
engaged in investigating or enforcing particular legitimate laws as an investigative or law
enforcement agency (Healey, Humphreys and Howe, 2013).
Department of justice is liable for administration of courts which is runs via Northern
Ireland Courts and Tribunal services. Criminal law is all about preventing entire community and
establishing from fraudulent activities in order to maintain social order. Thus, as per the criminal
laws if anyone is going to break the set rules and regulations then they must be found be as a
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guilty and fine for that crime or ask to pay penalty for certain act. The criminal law presumes
that each individual is innocent until proven guilty. The level of proof that is required is that the
evidence presented should show the person’s guilt ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Criminal Justice
Act 1967 is up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 17 January 2019. There
are changes that may be brought into force at a future date (Domestic abuse, 2012). An Act to
amend the law relating to the proceedings of criminal courts, including the law relating to
evidence, and to the qualification of jurors, in such proceedings and to appeals in criminal cases;
to reform existing methods and provide new methods of dealing with offenders; to make further
provision for the treatment of offenders, the management of prisons and other institutions and the
arrest of offenders unlawfully at large; to make further provision with respect to legal aid and
advice in criminal proceedings; to amend the law relating to firearms and ammunition; to alter
the penalties which may be imposed for certain offences; and for connected purposes (Thiara,
2011).
A court or jury, in determining whether a person has committed an offence,—
 (a)shall not be bound in law to infer that he intended or foresaw a result of his actions by
reason only of its being a natural and probable consequence of those actions; but
 (b)shall decide whether he did intend or foresee that result by reference to all the
evidence, drawing such inferences from the evidence as appear proper in the
circumstances.
Any power conferred by or under any enactment to release a person from a prison or
other institution to which the Prison Act 1952 applies or from an approved school may be
exercised notwithstanding that he is not for the time being detained in that institution or school
and a person released by virtue of this section shall, after his release, be treated in all respects as
if he had been released from that institution or school (Crime in England and Wales, 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been assessed that crimes are increasing day by day from
which domestic violence towards women’s at higher extent as lots of women’s are encountering
major problems. For example; dowry system, sexual harassment, rape and many more health
problems are identifies which is face by female or young girls in recent world. Thus, in order to
support women’s governing bodies have enacted numerous of legal laws, norms, provisions,
rules and regulations for protecting exploited ladies. Throughout the project, it has been
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understood that, large number of Acts, provisions and laws are introduced by legitimate bodies
for preventing women’s from exploitative activities. Along with this, proper system is imposed
at marketplace as well as various new rules and regulations are set for providing instant services
to the needy girls. Hence, whole project is revolving around facts or figures related with
women’s harassment and violence as well as shows that governing bodies have taken number of
initiatives for preventing women’s from any kind of violence.
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