Text 5. Domestic Violence in the USA and Uk

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, National Center for Victims of Crime, and WomensLaw.org. domestic violencecan be defined as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.

Physical Abuse: Hitting, slapping, shoving, grabbing, pinching, biting, hair-pulling, biting, etc. Physical abuse also includes denying a partner medical care or forcing alcohol and/or drug use.

Sexual Abuse: Coercing or attempting to coerce any sexual contact or behavior without consent. Sexual abuse includes, but is certainly not limited to marital rape, attacks on sexual parts of the body, forcing sex after physical violence has occurred, or treating one in a sexually demeaning manner.

Emotional Abuse: Undermining an individual's sense of self-worth and/or self-esteem. This may include, but is not limited to constant criticism, diminishing one's abilities, name-calling, or damaging one's relationship with his or her children.

Economic Abuse: Making or attempting to make an individual financially dependent by maintaining total control over financial resources, withholding one's access to money, or forbidding one's attendance at school or employment.

Psychological Abuse: Causing fear by intimidation; threatening physical harm to self, partner, children, or partner's family or friends; destruction of pets and property; and forcing isolation from family, friends, or school and/or work.

Domestic violence can happen to anyone regardless of race, age, sexual orientation, religion, or gender. Domestic violence affects people of all socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels. Domestic violence occurs in both opposite-sex and same-sex relationships and can happen to intimate partners who are married, living together, or dating.

Domestic violence not only affects those who are abused, but also has a substantial effect on family members, friends, co-workers, other witnesses, and the community at large. Children, who grow up witnessing domestic violence, are among those seriously affected by this crime. Frequent exposure to violence in the home not only predisposes children to numerous social and physical problems, but also teaches them that violence is a normal way of life - therefore, increasing their risk of becoming society's next generation of victims and abusers.

Sources: National Domestic Violence Hotline, National Center for Victims of Crime, and WomensLaw.org. http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/domviolence.htm

Vicious circle

Economic downturns can signal an upturn in domestic violence, as Baroness Scotland warns today. Joan Smith/ Guardian, Saturday 20 December 2008

You don't have to be poor to experience domestic violence. Plenty of middle-class women, and some men, are beaten and humiliated by their partners, but there's growing evidence that the global recession is making people more vulnerable to physical and mental abuse. This isn't because poverty causes violence in itself, but it does create conditions – a sudden change in circumstances, acute financial problems, loss of self-esteem – in which it's likely to take place.

In an interview in the Guardian today, attorney general Baroness Scotland says she believes domestic violence will become more widespread as the recession deepens – which supports reports from the US, where the effects of the sub-prime crisis began to be felt a while ago, putting families under huge levels of stress. A recent report from Florida suggests that domestic violence refuges in Tampa Bay are struggling to cope with an increase in the numbers of women seeking a safe place to stay. One refuge took in 34 women in October this year, twice as many as the same period last year.

Obviously there is no excuse for domestic violence, and many men who suffer a sudden drop in income or lose their jobs don't take it out on their partners and children. But pre-existing abuse is likely to get worse if a man is angry, depressed and spending more time at home because he no longer has a job. Men who feel insecure often abuse their partners and children to make themselves feel less inadequate, as a recent editorial in the British Medical Journal acknowledged. "Violence is used frequently to resolve a crisis of male identity," it observed.

It also pointed out that poverty increases vulnerability by raising the degree of conflict in relationships, diminishing women's economic power and reducing men's ability to lead what they think of as successful lives. Amnesty International, which has run a high-profile campaign against domestic violence around the world, sees poverty and marginalisation as both causes and consequences of violence against women. Poor women in developing countries find it harder to escape abusive situations, get protection from violent partners or redress=financial support/optimisation from the criminal justice system; this is particularly true when women are illiterate, and live in countries where patriarchal attitudes persist among lawyers and judges.

In the developed world, decades of campaigning by organisations such as Refuge mean that the existence of domestic violence is widely acknowledged. But the impact of the recession on already fraught(worried) relationships is only just being recognised; as unemployment and job insecurity affects more families, it's depressing but not surprising that women are becoming scapegoats for their partners' feelings of anger and humiliation.

Job losses are being reported daily and men who have lost their own incomes may resent the fact that their partners are still working, even if they're in minimum wage jobs. Or they may drink to blot out=hidetheir misery, exacerbating=escalatingfinancial problems and making violence more likely. As economic forecasts for the next year get worse, the government needs to alert GPs, teachers and social workers to look for signs of abuse in those families hit hardest by the recession.

Reading comprehension Check:

1. Is the problem of home violence acute in the UK or USA?

2. Why do people abuse their family members?

3. What should be done to reduce the number of violence-hit families in modern world?

4. Does financial instability increase the degree of conflict in modern family households?

5. Do unemployment and job insecurity mostly lead to abuse of women and children? Are men also likely to experience domestic violence due to the impact of the recession?

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 1127