2.4 Domestic violence
This section highlights what domestic violence is. It also
focuses on its different types, causes and outcomes. It discusses what makes it
a cultural norm in men's minds.
2.4.1 Definition
Several attempts have been made to define domestic violence.
Adams and Fortune (1995:15) view domestic violence as coercive manipulation
that a family member asserts over another with the aim of dominating or getting
and preserving power and control.
Domestic violence means learned behaviour that violent people
acquire to abuse family members. The abuser's aim is to confirm and uphold
power over family members. Violent men learn this behavior via observation; for
instance, Levy (1991:46) notes that boys who witness domestic violence by their
fathers assaulting their mothers and sisters are seven times more likely to
apply the same to their own spouses once they are married. This explains how
domestic violence is leaned through exposure to social values and beliefs
regarding the
appropriate roles of men and women. Besides, violent behaviour
is reinforced when peers and authorities fail to sanction batterers for
applying violence.
In the same vein, the World Health Organization underscores
that domestic abuse in the home is a crime that manifests itself differently in
interwoven and sometimes persistent forms (WHO, 2009a). Furthermore, Olson and
DeFrain (2000:516) state that domestic violence is the condition in which a
family member decides to willingly intimidate a member of the household who
lives with him. In this way, the domestic abuser voluntarily manipulates the
victim physically, sexually, psychologically or economically.
Domestic violence goes beyond applying physical force to the
victim. According to Arias (1999:12), it has no limits and its victims have no
specific profile. This is to say that anyone can perpetrate or suffer it but
women are the most exposed. In their research, Arias and Pape (1999:33), for
example, found that 85% of women suffer domestic violence, but mostly young
couples between 18 and 30 years old are highly at risk of critical spousal
assault.
2.4.2 Forms of domestic violence
Domestic violence has different forms. They vary depending on
the environment and the abuser, and they interrelate.
2.4.2.1 Domestic emotional violence
Eigen (1996:74) defines emotional violence as the abuser's
intentional infliction of psychological and emotional agony via humiliation or
threat, including verbal or non-verbal behaviour to the victim. These
psychological and emotional abuses put down a household member as the abuser
wants to have total control over what the victim can or cannot do, withholding
information from them and limiting their acquaintances (Saltzman et al.,
2002:42).
2.4.2.2 Domestic physical violence
The abuser will physically assault a household member once a
conflict is overt. It is in this context that severe harm, injury, disability
and occasionally death may follow. Bartels et al. (2009:101) reveal that South
Kivu men have often caused indelible physical scars to the victims and others
have been burned parts of their body for maintaining their power in the family.
Conversely, Vuningoma (2003:68) notes that, some women are more violent than
their abusers as `they even happen to cut their husbands sex off'.
Children also are involved in domestic violence. Some
cultures condone that parents apply force to children for correction, but the
opposite is not allowed. However, nowadays families are witnessing children
committing abuse to their parents in the home. A survey conducted by Vuningoma
(2003:66) in South Kivu showed that almost 2% of the parents admitted to have
suffered violence caused by their own sons. They pushed and beat their parents,
burned the house with the parents inside it and attacked parents with machetes,
spears or knives in an attempt to wound or kill them (Longa and Bulonza,
2006:33).
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