UNIT-4 : Gender Jurisprudence

Chapter 12 - Understanding the Importance ofAwakness of Sexual Harassment inFamily, Neighbourhood and OtherFormal and Informal Institutions

Question- What is domestic abuse?

Related Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of events happen in the family with women and what is their effect on them?

2. What is the reason for domestic violence?
   Answer - Abuse of women can happen anywhere at home or outside the home. Generally, the family has been considered as a safe place where women cannot be abused, but this illusion of women also goes away when they have to face abuse in their own house. Domestic abuse or violence is a destructive act that hurts a woman in the home or a domestic matter that causes injury or harm and has no interest in them. It has been seen that even the police do not take any action considering it as domestic violence. Society intervenes only when the woman is killed, she commits suicide or she suffers some serious injury. On reaching this stage, the loss that a woman suffers is bound to happen. Try to understand with an example. Here the events in the life of a girl named Asha are told. Asha was equally harassed daily by her in-laws, husband and her sisters. The reason for this misbehaviour was the demand for dowry. The neighbours knew very well what was happening to Asha but they did not report it to the police. One night, Asha was surrendered to the fire and then the attention of Asha’s parents was attracted to this horrific scene. She fainted after Asha’s entire body was burnt. There was a delay in the arrival of the parents. It was very difficult to console them. Asha had repeatedly complained that she was being abused, but her parents and brothers told her that her place was the husband’s house and such issues would be resolved on their own. This case of Asha is not an isolated incident. Countless women are victims of such domestic violence and such physical and mental abuse continues unabated in married life.
   Generally, domestic violence refers to assault, but abuse also includes the deprivation of any rights to women. Look at this illustration and then you will understand what is meant by misbehaviour. The girl is not sent to school and is forced to do household chores. She is not given nutritious food while the boy is given good food and education and all facilities are also provided for development. In this parable, however, the girl is not assaulted or abused. It happens that the rights which the girl has got are not available and hence she is deprived.

It is heart-wrenching that thirty percent of women are victims of abuse at home. Domestic abuse such as beating the wife, abusing girls, harassing for dowry, which ends in death due to dowry and not allowing the woman to leave the house, etc. Domestic abuse is associated with a culture that is a culture of silence and the woman does not say anything and avoids everything as personal. The situation also happens that even the people in the neighbourhood know this misbehaviour and leave it saying that it is the issue of others. In most of the families, man and woman do not have equal power. This is also a major cause of domestic violence. Women who are financially self dependent also they cannot take decisions independently and then imagine the condition of those women who are subordinate to their husbands and who have no right to take their decisions. It is believed in the society that in the house the man is the master and the woman is the subordinate. Often the pressures of the society compel women to bear the abuse and thus do not damage the honour of the family. It is also true that there are very few organizations that help women, such as voluntary organizations providing shelter and protection, where women can go to live. In the absence of institutions providing shelter at home or outside the home, domestic violence poses a great threat to women.

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