A lot of people practice violence against women in the whole world and this is considered as one of the huge problems we face nowadays. In addition, we all don’t realize well or even perceive that getting free from all the fear of getting beaten, assaulted sexually and being harassed are concepts which represent deep elements and pillars of our community and our social lives. In fact, women face violence whatever and no matter their age, nationality, education, identity, career, marital status, sexual opinion, political thoughts, mentality, physical disabilities, character or their religion are. In addition, women could get raped or beaten at any period of their lives whether they are children, teenagers or adults. What’s more, young girls who see cases of women getting abused become stronger as they grow because they don’t want to encounter the same form of violence. From the sexual point of view, girl teenagers who experience rape or sexual abuse could have great risks and consequences on their reproductive systems. While their growth, they could continue to deal with the same abuse in their families or in residential institutions.
Facts about Women Abuse:
One must take in consideration the following points:
1- Beating is the main reason of wounds and injuries for women whose ages are between 15 and 44 years old in the US.
2- The Federal Bureau of Investigation which collects info and data from men who work in the law enforcement stated that more than one hundred thousand women were preys of rape in 1990. On the contrary of what was mentioned by the FBI, a study about rape on America assesses that more than six hundred thousand women are getting raped each year.
3- Almost half of the percentages of women who can’t find shelter for them are in streets because they face abuse from their families.
4- Between fifth and half of the American women in the United States encountered at least one time of sexual violence when they were young and the majority of the cases were from older men from their relatives.
5- About two thirds of women who are being helped from others and associations were abused by their partners at a certain period of their lives.
According to these points, we can’t feel surprised that the Vienna Declaration and program of Action considers women abuse as abuse of the human rights of the major percentage of people worldwide. In fact, women feel safer when they are in streets than in their own houses and homes.
Definition of Women Abuse:
Experts and scientists use the word of women abuse in order to mean different forms and cases of dealing with women badly, threatening and beating them as well as neglecting their existence in houses from their partners, relatives or family members. These forms could occur from their past or current husbands, law partners, boyfriends, parents or members from their families. On the other hand, a lot of other words are used in order to depict the violence against women in their relationships that comprise violence, assault, sexual abuse and beating of wives in addition to spouse and partner abuse. Lately, a lot of activists who join the shelter movement started to use the word of woman abuse or woman beating. As for authors, they use the word of women abuse in order to mean different shapes and representations of abuse against women such as wives, divorced women, mothers and daughters as they face this violence from their parents, husbands or relatives. On the contrary, women abuse doesn’t limit on violence women receive from men only but they could encounter abuse from women as well.
Causes of Women Abuse:
1- The Desire of Dominating Women:
One of the main causes of women abuse is that abusers hit their preys and victims because they want to gain something from them and in order to dominate them. In fact, rapists and abusers behave in this way due to their feeling that they deserve to act like this. In addition, this feeling depends on sexual and racist concepts that the community build in their lives as men are the ones who must have the dominion.
2- Wrong Behaviors of Men:
On the other side, violence against women experienced from their families or their partners and parents is due to using power in a bad and negative mean inside societies that prefer men on women and doesn’t treat both of them equally. Besides, this feeling of dominion doesn’t limit on women only but it could surpass them to reach children whether they are males or females. Therefore, we now realize that abusing women derives from the unequal treatment between men and women which is born from unfair traditions and cultures that support men to think that they have the right to do and act like that towards their women.
3- Having Backward Societies:
As for other causes for women abuse, violence against women could happen in the undeveloped or low-developed societies because of crowded places where men and women get close to each other and because of the inability of men to get married so they feel that they want to feel the ecstasy of sex through raping and touch women.
4- Isolation and Poverty:
What’s more, poverty and isolation are reasons for women to get abused as according to the studies, women who have huge relationships and friends are well secured and feel safe than women who are isolated and separated from the society. Finally, men taking drugs or are addicted to alcohols beat their wives and daughters because they are unconscious and don’t know how to react to any kind of refusal or rejection from their families. That’s why they resort to battering and beating in order to get what they desire.
Types of Women Abuse:
In fact, abuse hits women in any place at any age regardless their backgrounds and their religion. It could occur to them at work, schools, in streets, houses or at any other public places. From the forms and types of women violence are the following elements:
1- Domestic and Close Violence from Partners:
Domestic violence happens when one person in any kind of relationship such as spouses, parents or dating hurt the other partner through subjecting them to any kind of physical or emotional damage. In addition, there is another term for domestic violence named intimate partner violence because it usually happens from current and ex-husbands and boyfriends. Surprisingly, women could hit other women too. As a matter of fact, people from different ages, religions, genders and social and educational levels encounter domestic violence. More than five million women in the United States get abused by a close partner every year.
2- Emotional Violence:
A lot of people could think that not getting any sort of physical abuse means that they are not facing violence. In fact, many cases like scaring, threatening, neglecting, isolating, capturing or dominating others could be considered as forms of violence. Thus, they could have great consequences on others as it could lead to mental disabilities or psychological diseases like depression or even committing suicide in order to get rid of this torture. What’s more, emotional abuse could be regarded as a sign that precede physical violence.
3- Human Trafficking:
Human trafficking refers to the hard and horrible conditions in which an individual is obliged or deceived to work and do certain functions. Examples of human trafficking are people who get kidnapped or people who are defrauded by telling them that they will have a better life in a new place or a new country. In fact, humans who are trafficked could be drugged, anesthetized, locked up, hit and prevented from eating or even being forced to work for a lot of hours each day. Examples of work trafficked person could be forced to do involve farming, prostitution, taking care of children, nursing, cleaning or hard work that require sweat and exhaustion.
The following elements are methods used by traffickers in order to have a dominion on women: first: to oblige her to work in order to pay back their money. Second: threatening her or one of her family members such as her children. Third: threatening to expel her from the country in which she lives, house or work. Fourth: taking her official documents like her passport, ID and certificates. Fifth: stopping her from seeing her family or friends or the outside world. Another form of trafficking could be forcing a woman to marry a man she doesn’t want. Inside these kinds of marriages, the husband and his family could largely dominate his wife and her family too. They could also put her in an isolated place in order to abuse her.
4- Stalking:
Stalking represents in someone who calls you more than once in order to scare or threaten you. Other forms of stalking involve: first: following you while you are walking in streets or spying on you and your private problems and issues. Second: sending you bad emails and letters or even packages. Third: calling you more than once. Fourth: being presented in your house, work or school without your permission. Actually, stalking doesn’t limit on strangers only, but the majority of stalkers could be people you recognize and know like boyfriends, ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends. Actually, stalking is a crime according to the law and could be very hazardous.
Effects of Women Abuse:
As a matter of fact, about forty five percent of women abuse leads to physical injuries and damages. On the other hand, it could lead to emotional damage as about eighty five percent of women witness emotional hurt including anger, fear, threatening, depression, anxiety and guilt or blaming. This means that emotional abuse is spread and has dangerous consequences than the physical damage because it could result in drinking alcohols, taking drugs or even committing suicide by women in order to finish the pain they feel or face.
In fact, the following points are the consequences of physical abuse:
1- Breaking bones like arms, legs or skull.
2- Burning body.
3- Stabbing with knives or any hot object like iron or a preheated spoon.
4- Concussing the brain.
5- Piercing ears and eardrums.
6- Cutting hair.
7- Pain in stomach or any part of the body.
8- Strong palpitation of the heart.
9- Biting organs and other parts in the body.
10- Cutting or scratching.
11- Bended parts or losing teeth.
12- Internal wounds like bleeding or damaging cells.
13- Chronic headache.
14- Detach of retina.
15- Terrible high blood pressure.
On the other hand, there are other kinds and representations as well as cases of women abuse including the sexual effects like: first: diseases which are transmitted to other bodies through sex like AIDs. Second: chronic pain in pelvic. Third: usual pregnancy. Fourth: beating as well as tearing the reproductive organs. Fifth: abortion of babies. Sixth: chronic pain in the urinary system. Seventh: deformation of the lower organs in the body. Eighth: infertility and being unable to get pregnant or having children. Ninth: inability to have healthy sexual relationships.
The Psychological Effect of the Women Abuse:
When someone faces abuse or get assaulted, he could feel really scared, depressed, mad, angry and distracted or doesn’t care at all because his emotions don’t want to experience pain or go through it. These feelings are very normal for woman who witnessed violence as they could feel one emotion or all of them in a time. In fact, getting raped or abused could result in terrible mental disabilities like stress disorder, depression and anxiety. Thus, women who experienced that could visit a therapist, counselor or a mental health expert in order to help them the ways they could deal with their feelings, establishing self-confidence and self-esteem as well as developing and improving the skills they could use to cope with this painful experience.
To be able to find the right professional, they could ask any doctor or search on websites that talk offer services of mental health. On the other hand, women could resort to drugs, alcohols, smoking or eating a lot in order to end this torture but this would result in physical problems and emotional hurt. In order to face this in a healthy way, they can talk to a doctors and therapists to aid them with these actions.
Additionally, she will have the ability to use healthy ways in order to decrease stress like exercising, practicing sports, yoga, breathing slowly, managing their anger as well as methods used to feel relaxed and trying to get support and encouragement from family members, relatives, friends and society gatherings. In fact, psychological effect of women abuse comprise: low self-confidence, depression, losing memory, anxiety, self-humiliation or self-blame, being unable to control and manage anger, difficulty in making relationships, abnormal fear response, phobias, insomnia or problems in taking care of children and nursing them.
A Real Case about Women Abuse and Its Effects:
Actually, I searched online on the official website of human rights in the female section and I found a lot of cases for women who get beaten and burned especially from their husbands. One of the cases that surprised me was a woman named Marilyn who lived with her husband in the United States and had two children. She got stabbed using a knife by her husband because of a stupid simple reason as she refused to make him dinner because she was so tired and exhausted. She replied so gently and said sorry for not being able to make it because she was coming back from work. Therefore, she asked him nicely to get up and prepare food for himself.
Suddenly, her husband started to yell at her and blame her for being lazy and doesn’t care well for him or her family. When she told him that he is cruel and irresponsible, he grabbed a knife and then stabbed her. She was shocked and called 911 immediately in order to come and rescue her. She also went to the police to arrest her husband and to sue him. This case attracted my attention because I always thought that men practice abuse on women because of an important reason like cheating them but I never thought that the reason could be so stupid and simple. In addition, I liked it because Marilyn didn’t surrender and remain silent. On the contrary, she was very courageous and did the right action. As a result, I think that all women who face violence or any kind of domestic abuse have to act quickly so that the consequences don’t get worse.
Solutions for Women Abuse:
To be able to help decreasing women abuse in your society and to be able to help others when they face this terrible problem: you have to follow these steps:
1- Ring the Bell:
If you live near families who face domestic violence, please ring the bell in order to check what is happening and offer help as soon as possible. You could resort to the old way if you are afraid to ring the bell by knocking your neighbors’ door to ask to borrow a cup of sugar. If you feel that the situation could be terribly bad, get another strong person with you so there will be more than one witness to the case or to be able to handle the situation better.
2- Consider Yourself the Backup:
If you know someone who encounters domestic violence like your friend, colleague, classmate, co-worker, boss, daughter, sister, mother or even mother-in-law, tell them that you will offer them help immediately and that you will do whatever you can do to aid them in dealing with the problem as well as being the witness to see the case. In addition, if you are able to host them at your house or apartment, offer them this temporary residence till they are able to end this problem. In the case of being unable to offer help by yourself, you could resort to police in order to end the problem legally without your intervention or without entering in issues that could cause you problems later.
Summary:
To sum up, women abuse is a great problem that the whole world faces especially in the United States. Many women witness all kind of violence starting from threatening and scaring them reaching to beating and burning them. Therefore, societies have to face this problem and bring an end to it through focusing on it in social media to find the proper solutions as well as taking hard and strong actions towards individuals who practice these horrible actions in order to become a model for anyone who thinks to act the same way they act.
