Domestic Violence – Definitions, Statistics, Forms of Manifestation

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Welcome back! I recently read different Romanian sites and blogs covering the pros and cons of the existence and manifestation of gender equality. I observed, unfortunately, that within Romanian society there is a strong tendency towards toleration of the violation of women’s rights. The main activities and programs of the Ratiu Center for Democracy aim to promote human rights and tolerance (ethnic, religious, gender), more specifically, the program Make Your Voice Heard!
Therefore, within our future posts, we will analyze the specific problems faced by women to encourage discussion (with you) whether gender equality represents an achieved goal or is still desired.
In this post, we will analyze one of the most critical problems that women face on the international and national level, the problem which represented the focus point for most of this program’s activities: violence against women. I ask that, today, you speak about the manifest forms of domestic violence, and tomorrow we will discuss the effects of domestic violence and which institutions can be used in these situations.

Violence takes on many forms including physical, sexual, verbal, psychological, emotional and financial. Any form of violence has severe repercussions on the victim’s health, specifically mental health – victims often relive violent moments through memories and/or nightmares, while the inner fear and shame lead to acute psychological imbalance. Domestic violence can be identified in the following facts and actions (we will exclude physical violence from our description):
• Psychological violence appears when the victim is treated condescendingly with violent and obscene language aimed at denigration. Blaming the wife for a violent act is another form of domestic violence. Questions such as “You see what you’ve made me do?” make the woman feel guilty for her husband’s aggression and inevitably lowers her self-esteem. Assuming a part of the guilt, the woman will feel discouraged to address her friends or to seek public authorities responsible in the field. Intimidation and threats are also part of psychological violence.
• Economic violence is manifest through the prohibition of women from employment and the deprivation of a specific monthly allowance. Housewives are, in my opinion, the most vulnerable category to domestic violence because household work is underestimated and unappreciated not only by husbands, but also through the social politics which offer no advantage or protection / social security to housewives.
• Sexual violence represents any sexual relations against the will of a woman, or more specifically, spousal rape and sexual abuse of children.
• Social violence confines a woman’s independence through the prohibition of family visits, time with friends and even walking alone.

[For further information on domestic violence classification, please consult Pence, E., Duprey, M., Paymar, M., McDonell, C. (1985). The Justice System's Response to Domestic Assault Cases: A Guide for Policy Development. Duluth, Minnesota: Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, p. 20]

Gender violence and domestic violence manifest in different degrees in all societies; the social hierarchy of power (regardless of its sphere) with respect to gender represents the accelerator principle of female discrimination through physical, psychological, economic and social violence. National, European and international statistics reveal that mostly women are the victims of domestic violence; thus, in concordance with UN reports, 20% - 50% of women are victims of domestic violence, around 11,400 annually in Romania.
The violence against women definition, theorized during the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, aims to classify all the gender-based violent acts that result or are likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty; domestic violence is defined as it follows: “any voluntary action form or omission of an action exerted on a family member (or any other form of cohabitation), causing him/her harm, that manifests taking advantage of his/her incapacity of defense, decide or seek help” [Roth, M (2003) Gen È™i Violență în Magyari-Vincze, E & MîndruÈ›, P (ed) Gen , Societate È™i Cultură, Editura FundaÈ›iei Desire, Cluj-napoca, p. , p. 485, 505].