Domestic Violence Against Women: A Global Epidemic

One of the most significant health and social problems affecting every society in the world today, irrespective of age, race, ethnic, socio-economic, and religious groups, is Domestic Violence against women.
According to the World Health Organization (2007):
Domestic violence is a global issue reaching across national boundaries as well as socio- economic, cultural, racial, and class distinctions. This problem is not only widely dispersed geographically, but its incidence is also extensive, making it a typical and accepted behavior.
Domestic violence is widespread, deeply ingrained, and has serious impacts on women’s health and well-being. Its continued existence is morally indefensible. Its cost to individuals, to health systems and to society is enormous. Yet no other major problem has been so widely ignored and so little understood.
Domestic violence is the misuse of power by one adult in a relationship to control another, through violence and other forms of abuse. It could be in the form of physical assault, psychological abuse, financial abuse, or social abuse. It is the most common type of violence against women, and causes as many deaths and incapacities in women of a reproductive age, as cancer do. It is also a higher reason for ill health in women than traffic accidents and malaria combined.
This essay aims to discuss the various forms of domestic violence, what leads to domestic violence, and the impacts of domestic violence on the physical and mental health of the women who experience it, the effects on the children who witness it, and the barriers that hold women back from leaving the abusive relationships.
Domestic violence could be physi...

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...seem, and give support and information on legal rights. However, there is little evidence that this is working.
The best way to approach this problem is by creating awareness about domestic violence, but from a male point of view. All the calls for action have been centered on the women’s needs, not paying enough attention to the men, who are the ones that carry out the act. There should be a campaign to make them consider if it was their daughter or sister that was being made to go through the unimaginable devastation they are subjecting to some other man’s daughter or sister. How would they feel? This would help them see their actions from a different perspective.
Domestic violence against women is a crucial problem in the world that not enough importance is given to. All that must stop now. The time for action is here. The abuse must end!