Domestic violence is gaining notoriety each passing day. More and more women are falling victims to this social ill at an alarming rate. Research, by Yehuda, shows that an estimated 1.8 to 3.6 women are suffering under abusive violence from their intimate partners each passing year.
Male partners are the most likely assailants to cause death to women as compared to any other assailants (Yehuda 110). This does not only result in deaths, but also disabling injuries and serious medical conditions. The main aspect that is lacking is the support of the agencies.
The incapacity of agencies dealing with this issue of domestic violence and specifically from the cultural perspective poses another barrier to help seeking by the victims.
Lambropoulou points out that most of these organizations felt that they did not qualify in terms of understanding the cultural needs and hence were unable to deal with the issue and come up with a remedy. In addition to this, most of the agencies have specifically designed roles that they play and thus fail to go beyond their specific boundaries (Lambropoulou 349).
Roberts identifies what is referred to as cultural privacy and respect as another impediment of efforts by victims of domestic violence to seek help from relevant sources. The strong role played by culture and religion in the definition of the community has led to a formation of certain positions that unfortunately subject some members into suffering.
These positions have made relevant organizations fail to intervene in certain cases purporting that they were observing respect of the culture. Any substantial effort by the authorities to intervene is met by spirited resistance from leaders of the community thus allowing people to use the law at the pretext of cultural dictates (Roberts 38). Thus, much of the variables are still unknown.
The largest cause of domestic violence related deaths and permanent disabling injuries have been identified to be husbands, boyfriends or ex-lovers and ex-husbands. Basing on this research, violence against women was thus identified as the number one health problem faced by the woman by the National Women’s Health Project (Yehuda 109). Thus, it is the women population that would benefit when the problem is solved.
Defining the problem
In all cultures and social settings, the set values and behavior that define the culture of a social group also contributes to the prevalence of domestic violence amongst women. Not only do these values encourage domestic violence but they also discourage help seeking efforts by the victims.
Such cultures are characterized by an imbalance in power relations between the two genders render women into a “…tradition of victimology” (Yehuda 110) where women have to shoulder all responsibilities in case of a domestic violence.
To magnify the problem, it is found that government authority regularly fails in handling the situation. They are said to have failed in their role as a wife or to have greatly contributed into the triggering of the wrath of the head of the house and therefore caused harm to themselves.
With such beliefs well established in the overall belief system, the victim of violence will not seek help fearing the fact that she will be blamed for everything or in some aspects, they will believe that they are the cause of the violence for failing to live up to the standards expected of them as wives within the domestic settings.
Loosing the children is another impediment in the seeking of help by victims of domestic violence (McGee 189). Most women envision the emotional implication of a future without their children or the financial implication of a future with the children but without the partner. This forces them to stick with an abusive partner without seeking help from outside sources.
Most women believe that one of the most likely repercussions of seeking help from agencies is that the children would be removed from the scene of the violence and be put under custody of the agencies. This might make the victims deny the extent of the violence just to ensure that the agencies are put off (Yehuda 112).
In conclusion, several women are living under the shadows of violent partners but are not ready to seek help from relevant organizations or their family and friends. This is triggered by several factors that would implicate negatively on them if their partners discovered that they are seeking help or the steps that would be taken to assist them.
This means that all the organizations that are responsible for dealing with domestic violence must come up with strategies that would take these barriers into consideration. Failure to do this will mean that domestic violence will remain for ages.
Works Cited
Lambropoulou, Ethen. “The sociology of prison and the self-referential approach to prison organization and to correctional reforms.” Systems Research and Behavioral Science 16.8 (2008): 239-252.
McGee, Charles. Childhood experiences: domestic violence. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2008.
Roberts, Alex. Battered Women and their families: intervention strategies and treatment programs. London: Springer Publishing Co., 2007.
Yehuda, Rina. “Post-traumatic stress disorder.” New England journal of medicine 246.2 (2006): 108-114.