Domestic Violence

Terminology

Transcript

• For years Maria was a victim of domestic violence: her husband would beat her several times a month.
• In the end when I was living with him I could no longer eat. I was shut up in the dark; I couldn’t get up from the sofa, it just wasn’t possible. It was at that moment that I saw a light and I said, ‘I have to get out’.
• At the end of her rope, she came to this treatment center near Madrid. It helps abused women regain their sense of dignity.
• Here for the first time they felt that someone believes in them. They feel that someone is listening. For the first time they are getting meaningful help that helps them recover.
• Maria has an emergency number which she can call if she feels threatened. She is just one of the 1.5 million Spanish women who reportedly suffer domestic violence at least once in their lives. Concerned by such numbers, Spain became the first European country to establish special courts and treatment centers for abused women. It has also led a public information campaign.
• The government has made it a top priority and implemented numerous measures at the legislative level in the prevention and to help women. They are good initiatives but there’s still more to do.
• Last year the number of women killed by their partners dropped by almost a third to 55 compared to 2008. Still, too many wasted lived, but at least a small step forward.

DV is widely understood to refer to violence committed against an intimate partner. Numerous other terms are used including wife abuse, woman abuse, spouse abuse, interpersonal violence (IPV), and more recently, interpersonal violence and control (IPVC). DV is widely understood to include more than acts of physical aggression such as pushing, shoving, punching, and hitting; it may be psychological aggression like name calling and demeaning talk. It also may include sexual aggression such as rape, forced pornographic reenactments; economic aggression (e.g., withholding money for essentials); spiritual aggression (e.g., forbidding spiritual practices); or social aggression (e.g., breaking friendships and social ties). It still remains important to be critical of the terminology [Page 411]chosen for any given study or program, or at least to give the definition of one's term, as domestic violence also can be seen to include any violence that occurs between people who share the domestic or private setting. Partners, parents, children, the elderly, siblings, and others, are named as target groups of the violence. Each of these has generated a different base of academic literature, research traditions, underlying theories and frameworks, and recommendations for treatment or prevention. There are disciplinary differences in how the topics are approached and recommendations for action on policies presented. Thus, one cannot assume that expertise in the area of elder abuse will overlap with expertise in domestic violence against an intimate partner or spouse. From this point on, DV is meant to refer to violence between partners who live together in an intimate relationship.

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