Family Violence, Essay Example

Family violence occurs daily and includes forms like physical, financial and sexual abuse, neglect and maltreatment of children as well as elder abuse. Domestic violence can be defined as an outline of activities and behaviors whereby one partner tries to dictate and take control of the other through intimidation, threats, emotional harm and the use of physical force.

Unlike other crimes, domestic violence is habitually not a sudden or an unexpected incident. It may take years of psychological and emotional suffering as well as physical harm, which may occur frequently and develop to a more severe situation. Family violence has a distressing impact to those involved and exposed to such violence, for example, children experiencing it and living with it as witnesses.

Causes of violent behavior include economical, historical and psychological reasons. These reasons relate with each other and cause family violence. Habitually, combinations of reasons are associated with violent behaviors as shown below:

Drugs, alcohol and crime verses domestic violence

Family violence is sometimes triggered by drug and alcohol abuse. Alcoholics and addicts often suffer from emotional health, which leads to secondary violence and anger. For example, recent studies indicates that families where the husbands were described as ” drunk”, the number of domestic violence were approximately 20 times greater than in families where husbands were described as “never drunk”.

Poverty and Health verses domestic violence

When someone has undesirable life experiences, for example, deteriorating health or loss of job, violent activities become more predominant. Lack of money becomes stressful, especially during needy times.  Feelings of helplessness arise when someone is not able to provide for his/her family, therefore, leading to domestic Violence.

Media Influence

The media plays a major role in family violence. Movies and Music present an exaggerated form of violence either as punishment or a way of dealing with problems. When such images combine with relationship pressure, it causes an extraordinary and unusual amount of stress, particularly to the adolescents. A recent report by the Seattle Children’s Hospital Research Institute showed that, for each time of violent television watched daily, a child is likely to show problems three times more with aggression four years later.

Victims of family violence need to seek help and assistance from the health care professionals, community and society workers as well as support and social workers to ensure that they have a plan and strategy for protecting their safety and health. Other ways of getting help and assistance include

• Recommendation for counseling services, which include disaster and emergency counseling and intervention
• Developing an international assessment approach to evaluate the efficiency of service responses to children and women who experience violence
• Research on the exact needs and requirements of children and older women who are affected by violence, specifically sexual violence, so as to ensure efficient services are available to their individual needs.
• Reviewing, publicizing and updating the good practice procedures and standards in supporting programs for children and women who mainly experience violence to assure quality
• Help with legal matters and courts. These include national awareness of functional laws and procedures, including which the requirements are able to provide for a just legal answer for victims of family violence.
• Secure housing for individuals and their children