Dealing with cause and effects of domestic violence

By: Allan Elutin Ecleo

This Christmas was fun yet relaxed.  I left the house early in the morning after updating my Gospel website and hung out in the historic Zapote Bridge. 

Before I stepped out, there was this young girl who went to our house asking for some gift.  My mother who was assisting my sister in the kitchen could not respond immediately because they’re also flat broke.  So I was the one obliged asking her to “sit this one out,” because I myself has also been impoverished since I lost my job so I need to budget more conscientiously on what is being left in my pocket.

While relaxing in the bridge’s small park (the Battle of Zapote Bridge was fought on February 17, 1897 as part of the Philippine Revolution led by General Emilio Aguinaldo who defeated Spanish forces), a young wife who was crying approached a peddler and related her displeasure against her husband who punched her arm.  The man gave her money out of compassion which the former refused because she was ashamed, trying to avoid piling indebtedness toward this neighbor.

Almost immediately another elderly woman who looked dead beat came into sight.  I thought she’s crazy because she just sit on the floor and worried at the same time because she looked like to almost collapse.  While in that position, she listened attentively to the grumbling and crying young wife. 

After which, she advised the other that she could do it.  In fact her problem is even complicated because her son was murdered, she says.

In a while, the elderly woman left and in a teary-eye faced upward and said, “Lord, forgive us!”  Then facing the young wife, she said, “You can do it!”  At this gesture, the young wife burst heavily in tears.

With this encounter, it stimulates me to make an article which talks about this issue. 

Domestic abuse knows no age or ethnic boundaries, where it occurs during a relationship or after a relationship has ended.

Known also as intimate partner violence, domestic abuse, spousal abuse, and intimate partner abuse, domestic violence is any form of ill-treatment that occurs in a heterosexual (or homosexual romantic relationship for countries where same sex union is legalized). 

Domestic violence costs $8.3 billion in expenses annually: a combination of higher medical costs ($5.8 billion) and lost productivity ($2.5 billion)[1] according to the source.  The Scripture must be rational when it teaches: “All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. Ephesians 4:31) as this is a threat to the society.

A common pattern of domestic abuse is that the perpetrator exchanges between violent, abusive and apologetic behavior with perceptible sincere promises to transform. The abuser may be very pleasant most of the time, where perpetual appeal of the abusing partner lies and why many people are powerless to leave the abusive relationship.  In fact, my aunt who’s a battered wife all through out with her marital life had left her husband a number of times but could not leave her husband because of this factor.

Domestic abuse is not a consequence of losing control but intentionally trying to control another person by decisively using verbal, nonverbal, or physical means. 

[2] In some cultures, control of women by men is accepted as the norm because of the absence of law that regulates it. 

In 2003, only 45 countries had particular laws on domestic violence. Out of ten counties surveyed in a 2005 study by the World Health Organization (WHO), over 50 percent of women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Tanzania reported having been subjected to physical or sexual violence by intimate partners, with figures reach a confounding 71 percent in rural Ethiopia. Japan is the only country reported with less incidents of domestic violence which is below 20 percent.

Previous World Health Organization report places the number of women physically abused by their partners/ex-partners at 30 percent in the United Kingdom, and 22 percent in the United States. [3]

Worldwide, 40-70% of all female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner.[4] 

Nearly 40 percent of all murders of women worldwide are carried out by an intimate partner, according to the World Health Organization. One in three women across the globe has experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of her partner. In the United States, some 1.3 million women are assaulted by their partner each year.[5] 

Kinds of domestic abuse 

Intimate partner violence consist of physical, verbal (emotional, mental, or psychological abuse), sexual,economic/financial, and spiritual abuse. Stalking and cyber-stalking are likewise figured out as types of intimate partner abuse. Roughly seventy-five percent of stalkers are men stalking women, although women can also be stalkers of men. 

1). Verbal or non-verbal abuse of a spouse or intimate partner may include: 

• threatening/intimidating to win submission, destruction of the victim’s personal property and possessions (or threats to do so) 
• violence to an object (such as a wall or piece of furniture) or pet, in the presence of the intended victim as a way of instilling fear of further violence
• yelling/screaming, name-calling, constant harassment, embarrassing 
• making fun of/mocking the victim (either alone within the household, in public, or in front of family/friends)
• criticizing/diminishing the victim’s accomplishments/goals
• not trusting the victim’s decision-making 
• telling the victim that they are worthless on their own without the abuser
• excessive jealousy
• isolation from friends and family
• excessive checking-up on the victim to make sure they are at home or where they said they would be
• saying hurtful things while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and using the substance as an excuse to say the hurtful things 
• blaming the victim for how the abuser acts or feels
• making the victim remain on the premises after a fight (or leaving them somewhere else after a fight) just to “teach them a lesson” 
• making the victim feel that there is no way out of the relationship 

2). Sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a spouse or intimate partner includes: 

• sexual exploitation (such as forcing someone to watch pornography, or forcing someone to participate in pornographic film-making) 
• Sexual abuse often is linked to physical abuse; they may occur together, or the sexual abuse may occur after a bout of physical abuse. 

3). Economic or financial abuse includes: 

• withholding economic resources such as money or credit cards 
• stealing from or defrauding a partner of money or assets
• exploiting the intimate partner’s resources for personal gain
• withholding physical resources such as food, clothes, necessary medications, or shelter from a partner 
• preventing the spouse or intimate partner from working or choosing an occupation 

4). Spiritual abuse includes: 

• using the spouse’s or intimate partner’s religious or spiritual beliefs to manipulate them 
• preventing the partner from practicing their religious or spiritual beliefs 
• ridiculing the other person’s religious or spiritual beliefs 
• forcing the children to be reared in a faith that the partner has not agreed to 

Domestic abuse is more common in low-income populations where lack mobility and the financial resources to leave an abusive situation are present.

According to the research, intimate partner violence is a foremost public-health problem at more than attributable million women and 800,000 men which causes homelessness, injury, or death of victims, billions of dollars in health-care costs, and lost work productivity.[6]

Conversely, as many as 12% of youth in grades 7 through 12 have been victims of physical dating violence, and 20% of youth have endured psychological dating violence in the United States. This abuse endangers its preys of engaging in risky sexual behavior, unhealthy eating, drug use, and suicidal behaviors. Other complications can include physical injury and death. Towards the end, these victims are also more likely to evolve as sufferers of intimate partner violence being adults.

This has been and in some ways continues to be endorsed in all societies through legal sanctioning of the suppression of women. This imperfection dawns on couples of all races, religions, social economic status, and sexual orientations. It has been pointed out that risk factors for men or women who turn to be victims or abusers include poverty, lack of a high school education, witnessing family violence as a child, and attitudes of male domination and substance abuse, especially alcohol abuse[7]. 

Physical violence in this affair involves assault of any kind, from pinching, pushing, hitting, or slapping to choking, shooting, stabbing, and murder. 

Oral, emotional, mental/psychological abuse are described as using words to criticize, humiliate, or dwindle confidence the intimate partner’s victim . 

Sexual abuse refers to any conduct that uses sex to dominate or disgrace the victim, such as coercing the victim into unsafe sex or sexual customs in which she/he does not want to involve with. 

Financial abuse is described as controlling the victim's economic liberty/safety. 

Spiritual abusers either compel the victim to involve in the batterer's religious customs instead of their personal or to bring up mutual children in a religion that’s not the victim’s choice. 

Stalking refers to frequent pestering and intimidating behaviour like showing up at the prey's home or workplace, making annoying phone calls, voicemail, email or postal mail messages/objects, or defacing the prey's possessions. Commission of such is usually by doers of other domestic violence forms.

Causes or risk factors of domestic violence

There is no particular cause of domestic violence.  Women at the highest risk for being the victim of domestic violence, those with male partners who abuse drugs (especially alcohol), unemployed or underemployed, undergraduate of high school, or have been in a romantic relationship with the victim.

Unmarried in heterosexual relationships are prone to becoming victims of domestic violence. An attitude that provides men power over women endangers an individual to be involved in an abusive relationship, either as a perpetrator or as a victim.

Frequent involvement in religious services is linked with less accounted domestic abuse, which is justifiable because any values pronounced in the pulpit serves as a reminder which is encouraging an enlightening.

Research discloses that those who grew up in a household of violence wherein a parent suffered from alcoholism are more likely to become either perpetrators or victims of intimate partner violence as adults, which I could attest to because personally I witness how my younger brother behaves who’s into alcoholism.  He does not beat my in-law but it has been several times that he almost hit his wife.

Teenagers who are into mental illness also endanger to be in an abusive relationship as young adults.

Lower grades are also linked as another risk factor on teen dating/domestic violence.

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