Understanding the Concept of Domestic Violence and how it can be addressed:
We must have made expressions like “How can a right-thinking Human being do that?” or “Some people are just so heartless in this life”. Usually, expressions like these are made when the dastardly and irreversible act is done and when the victim has already been victimized. Truth be told, we say these to make up for our indifference after all, what kind of human being are you to just sit, watch and do nothing when all Hell is turned loose.
Domestic violence is all around us, it has been here, it is still here and it will be here, so any attempt to give the concept a wholistic grasp or understanding is definitely going to be a futile one. We must understand first that we need a continuous understanding of the concept, however, one consistent factor is the fact that women and children have always been the target.
It is estimated by UNwomen that globally about 736 million women, i.e. one in three have been subjected to physical and/ or sexual partner violence, non-partner violence, or both at least once in their lifetime, and unfortunately, these statistics is projected to increase indefinitely.
It is therefore wise to look at the concept of Domestic violence from the victims perspective. A significant number of victims will agree that the abuser didn’t become violently Abusive overnight, the indicators have always been there they just choose to ignore or hope that the abuser will change miraculously even though they know it is highly unlikely.
Another trap that has kept women in abusive relationships is the psychological dependence that resonates around relationships when they have babies for the abusive spouse; an article on www.informa.com depicts a story of a woman when abused for the first time “I tried to leave right away, but he followed me and begged me to forgive him, he said he did not want our child to grow without a father” (Metropolitan detention center Brooklyn).
Sometimes abuse is aggravated when the abused see themselves as public figures who need to sustain a public perception even when they are dying silently as seen in the story of the late Nigerian singer Osinachi.
To address domestic violence, we must condemn totality the wicked culture of only minding our business, if you are living in a community where your neighbor is consistently abused by her spouse and you have so far done nothing about it because you are not directly involved, then you need to change, start talking even when the person victimized is silent.
We must also encourage women to run away from any forms of violent abuse mild or advance, as a broken marriage is always far better than a lying corpse.
Finally, we must do away with any culture that, directly or indirectly encourages men to get physical with women.
