SAY NO TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE!
Domestic Violence is a pattern of behavior in any relationship that a person used to gain, threaten or maintain power and control over an intimate partner in a marriage or cohabitation. Domestic violence may involve children, parents, or the elderly. It can take multiple forms which might be physical, verbal, religious, sexual, mental, psychological, emotional, and other actions that influence the other person. This includes any behaviors that frighten, intimidate, terrorize, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame, and injured or wound a person.
Maybe your partner usually apologizes and says the hurtful behavior wouldn’t happen again but it is all lies, at times the victim will wonder if he/she is imagining the abuse yet the pain you feel the will is real,
How do you know if you are a victim of domestic violence?
Anyone can be a victim of domestic violence or abuse no matter the race, sex, age, sexual orientation, child, relatives, household member, or gender. It could occur within a range of relationships including couples who are married living together or dating. But domestic violence is mostly directed towards women. Although it might be easy to identify domestic violence at first, while some relationships are clearly abusive from the outset, abuse often starts subtly and got worse over time. Some of the things you might be experiencing in your relationship that may indicate if you’re being abused or not are:
1. Making you feel that without them, you cannot live or exist
2. Using abusive words on you in presence of his friends, family, and other people
3. Embarrassing you publicly
4. Calls you names, insulting you
5. Regular conflict
6. Prevents or discourages you from going to work, interacting with people, family, or relatives
7. Threatens you with violence or a weapon
8. Hits, kicks, slaps, chokes or hurts you and your children
9. Rape or forces you to engage in sexual acts against your will
10. Blames you for every action relating to his/her violent behavior.
11. Behavioral changes such as being highly anxious, isolated, scared, and fearful.
However, these are some of the general signs to watch for if you or someone is suspected of being abused.
CAUSES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
1. Impatient
2. Bad temper argument
3. Poor family values and upbringing
4. Poverty and unemployment
5. Growing up in an abusive family
6. Lack of love and toxic relationships
7. Jealous and low self-esteem
8. Lack of awareness of the ethics of intimate relationships.
9. Lack of trust
10. Lack of empathy
11. Ignorance
12. Mental health problem
Reasons Why A Victim Don’t Want To Leave The Abuser
1. Many victims of domestic violence are afraid that their children will blame or hate them if they choose to walk away from the situation.
2. Many victims are reluctant to end violent marriages because they don’t want their partner to end up marrying someone else
3. It is believed that marriage is the peak of achievement for women
4. Because most divorcees at times are subjected to disabilities and sometimes not allowed to hold certain offices in society.5. Many victims believe that they will be used to the beating moreover, they still love the abuser and hope that things will work out.
TYPES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Some of the types of domestic violence are:
1. Physical Abuse: this is a process where the abused person received physically aggressive treatment from the other person, the person is feeling the pains physically such as beating, slapping, pushing, hitting, burning, choking, and throwing objects to hurt the person, grabbing, pinching, and hair pulling or forcing a partner to use drugs or alcohol on him/herself, an actual attempt to kill the victim and disrupting your sleeping patterns to make you feel exhausted.
2. Sexual abuse: this involves attempting any sexual contact or behavior without the partner's consent such as marital rape, attacks on sexual parts of the body, forcing sex after physical violence as occurred or after beating the person, always jealous of your outside relationships.
3. Emotional Abuse: this is a method of restraining a person's ability to acquire, use or maintain economic resources to which they are entitled, this includes using fraud or manipulating to restrict a person's access to money, assets, or credit or financial information or exerting undue influence over a person's financial and economic behavior, mocking, intimidation and making humiliation remarks, manipulating your children. It makes the person feeling to be powerless and hopeless
4. Psychological abuse: this has to do with the things that affect the mind and emotions such as causing fear by intimidation, threatening, physical harm to partner, children or partner family or friends, destruction of property, and forcing isolation from family, friends and at work, putting you down in front of other people, monitoring your phone calls, texts, chats, and computer use. Preventing you from seeing your families and friends.
5. Technology abuse: this is a pattern that is intended to harm, harass, threaten, monitor, exploit and extort another person by the use of a computer or any technology device such as an internet-enabled device, online platform, mobile device, app, and location tracking device.
6. Economic Abuse: this occurs when the abuser makes the victims entirely financially dependent on him such as forbidding the victim to work or attend school, jeopardizing employment by stalking or harassing the victim at the workplace, withholding money or allowance, denying access to bank accounts, and hiding family assets.
Tips On Remedy To Domestic Violence
1. Report to the law enforcement agencies or to the police
2. Confined in someone you trust, it can be a friend, coworker, relative, or spiritual adviser for support.
3. Counseling or mental health are available in some communities.
4. A local court that can help obtain a restraining order that legally mandates the abuser to stay away from you.
5. Your healthcare provider will treat the injuries and refer you to safe housing and other local resources.
6. You can visit the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), this agency is a domestic violence prevention advocacy group with a list of resources for help.
7. Provision of supplementary support service
8. The victims should seek and accept that he/she needs help.
9. Stay away from alcohol and drugs because they might impair your thought process
10. Increase awareness of domestic violence, its causes, and prevention.
11. Victims of domestic violence should start speaking out.
12. Learning appreciate forms of discipline
13. Incase of women should be economically independent it will help to reduce domestic violence
Meanwhile, the solution to domestic violence would depend on the actual cause of the violent behavior. At times, this violence increases during pregnancy, this abuse puts your health and the baby’s health at risk, and the danger may continue after the baby is born, even if your child is not abused simply witnessing domestic violence can be harmful and not only predisposes them to numerous and physical problems. children who grow up in abusive homes as an adult might tend to become abusers or think that abuse is a normal part of human life.
The victim might be worried that telling the truth will further endanger their life. But sis! Your life is so precious to you, your children, your families, your friends, and the universe. Seeking help is the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones. Even though you stay in an abusive relationship, the longer and greater the physical and emotional toll, you might become depressed and anxious or you might feel helpless or paralyzed and it may lead to death!
