DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Domestic Violence within Adolescent Females

Domestic Violence within Adolescent Females

Ellsberg, Mary. Jansen, H. Watts, C. (2008), Intimate partner violence and women's physical and mental health in the WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence: an observational study, The Lancet, Volume 371, Issue 9619, pp. 1165-1172

Research Objective

This research aims at investigating the enormity and characteristics of different forms of emotional violence, sexual, and physical violence against women. Main focus has been placed on the violence committed by male intimate partners against women that comes under domestic violence principles.

Brief Review of the Literature

Domestic violence occurs in an environment of complex, often interrelated issues, including individual, situational, psychological and couple relationship factors, in the context of a social, political, and economic environment. U.S. Census Bureau collected statistics of domestic violence under the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). In 2007, the NCVS estimated that there were 593,100 incidents of domestic violence victimization by an intimate partner in the United States. In the year 2007, 504,980 women became the victim of domestic violence. The lifetime prevalence estimates that 16.5% of the population has experienced domestic violence in their lives. The annual rate of domestic violence victimization reported by the NCVS has dropped 60% for women (from 9.8 to 3.9 per 1,000 women age 12 or older). People who are not in majority race may be reluctant to report domestic violence crimes because of a mistrust of systems that have historically been used to oppress and exploit them.

Domestic violence is a phenomenon that affects all countries, regardless of class, race or education level of people involved. It is a struggle for power, willingness to maintain the unequal relations between men and women, and to perpetuate the submission of the unequal relations. The NVAWS survey results for the interim period of 1994 to 1996 estimated that there were 2.3 million domestic violence victims in the United States. Annual prevalence of domestic violence issue equal 1.2% of the population. Menace of domestic violence needs to be managed through counter support to the victims. This requires assisting victims of domestic violence by creating shelters where domestic violence victims can receive psychological support, financial support, and emergency services.

The violence in dating tends to go unnoticed by both the institutions and for the young people themselves, leading to lack of institutional support for victims and family. Violent behavior in relationships of couples are not formal or perceived as such by the victims nor the perpetrators, because usually confuse abuse and offenses with love and concern for the couple . From 15 years and even before the marriage , adolescents and young people begin to learn and try new forms of behavior consistent with their increased freedom and independence from the family of origin to adopt later in life. The violence masquerading as love is almost invisible: the signs of abuse during courtship are unknown to many of the young, who mistake them for signs of affection actually hidden controlling behaviors grounded in inequality between the ...