Meaning: 

Domestic violence is an aggressive or violent activity in the house characterized by the violent abuse of a partner or spouse which includes physical abuse such as kicking, hitting, biting, pulling hair, slapping, grabbing, pushing, shoving everything.

Definition: Based on the US Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women-Domestic violence is defined as - "A pattern of abusive behavior used in any relationship by one person to seize or maintain control over another intimate partner."

Incidents:

• Gender-Based Violence was discovered to be a risk factor for unwanted births among married teenage and young adult women in a 2017 research on India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
• In 2020, an analysis of women from the US, India, Brazil, Tanzania, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Australia, and Hong Kong revealed that domestic violence was linked to a higher chance of breastfeeding that lasted for fewer months.
• According to research from Bangladesh and Nepal, women who experience violence often have low nutritional conditions, high levels of stress, and inadequate self-care.
• Another review of Pakistani data from the years 2012–2013 revealed a sharp rise in the number of children of battered women who were underweight, stunted, and wasted.
• Therefore, there is no shortage of data demonstrating a direct causal link between domestic violence and children's growth and development.

1. Prevalence: 

Worldwide, there is a big problem with domestic violence. Around one in three women worldwide have at some point in their life experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual assault by a non-partner, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

2. Reporting: 

Domestic violence often is underreported most of the time because of the fear and impact on society out of shame, and financial dependency. For the victims who do not complain and keep it as is, it's difficult to estimate the true extent of the problem for their behavior.

3. Consequences: 

Domestic violence can have severe physical, psychological, and social consequences for the victims. It can lead to injuries, chronic health problems, mental health issues like anxiety and depression, and even death in extreme cases.

4. Legal Protection: 

The legal protection for every individual woman is the most important specifically in a country like India. The laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, retrain orders, and support services for services to survivors

5. Support and Resources: 

Numerous organizations, hotlines, and shelters exist to provide assistance and support to domestic violence victims. They provide counseling along with emergency necessities,  legal aid, and give services to help women/men.

Types:

The notion of domestic violence encompasses a wide range of abuse:

Any form of violent behavior inflicted on the victim is considered physical abuse.

• Sexual abuse: This happens when the perpetrator forces or tries to force the victim into engaging in sexual activity without the victim's consent.
• Invalidating or undermining the victim's sense of self-worth and/or self-esteem is an example of emotional abuse.
• Economic abuse occurs when the abuser attempts to or succeeds in making the victim financially dependent.
• Psychological abuse: entails the abuser intimidating the victim or the victim's loved ones or threatening to harm them physically.
• Using a weapon, threatening to hit, harm, or use violence is a type of psychological abuse.
• Cyberstalking is the term for online behavior or persistent emailing that causes the recipient great emotional pain.

Provisions:

A new law was approved by the Indian Parliament with the intention of better safeguarding Indian women against sexual assault. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, passed in 2003, further modifies the Indian Penal Code of 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code of 1973, the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act of 2012.

Additional laws that apply in this area are:

• The 1983 amendment to the Indian Penal Code: This law's particular section, section 498A, addresses abuse of married women by their husbands or by the families of their husbands.
• The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005): This law guarantees a woman the right to live in her "matrimonial household" and prohibits her from being forcibly removed from the home she legally owns with her husband. Sections 4(1), 5, 6, 12, 17, 18, 19, 19(3), 20, 21, 22, 31, and 33 further provide additional protections.
• The Indian Penal Code of 1860: This law contains various provisions that aim to protect women from assault, including Section 364 IPC for Outraging Women's Modesty, Section 304 IPC Dowry Death, and Section 313 for Causing Miscarriage without Women's Consent, etc.

Sadly, India has many laws and safeguards designed to protect women, and now a lot of the women abuse them.

Conclusion:

Legislation alone would not be adequate to address the established social issue of violence against women. The issue of domestic violence is significant, not minor. The main causes of spousal violence are dowry, monetary issues, drunkenness, illiteracy, extramarital affairs, a poor childhood, and illiteracy.

History demonstrates that no piece of legislation has ever been able to completely eradicate crime from the world. Numerous laws exist to assist citizens, but doing so requires that they are aware of their obligations and rights. Men are victims of domestic violence as well, and the legal system needs to do more to protect them. We should adopt a wider perspective and stop thinking of men as inferior to women or as mere victims; in some situations, men also experience violence and need both legal and psychological support.

My Suggestion:

Typically, legislation alone cannot address ingrained social problems. It is necessary to change peoples' perspectives about this. Law is required and important, even though there are alternative methods to tackle these issues. As a consequence, it may provide encouragement and have educational components as well as legal repercussions backing it up, which helps to give the public's view a particular shape. Laws governing domestic violence towards men are also required.

1. Education and awareness: The first and foremost thing in case of restricting domestic violence we should do is to educate people so that the knowledge and terrific impact of domestic violence doesn’t increase, as well as raising awareness through public campaigns, community programmes, educational initiatives and promote healthy relationships, gender equality, the non-violent conflict resolution among the young generation in various institutions.
2. Legal Measures: Strengthen the laws and policies to protect victims and hold perpetrators accountable. We have to ensure the laws are effectively enforced also providing adequate resources for people who are victims of this violence and the judicial system to deal with the matter.
3. Support Services: Government should increase the availability of the help resource centers that people can reach out to when they need help such as shelters, hotlines, counseling, and legal aid as well as enhancing the funding of organizations in this field of people should be there.
4. Raising the voice of women: Last but not least and most im[portantly as soon as women feel insecure and physically tortured, or mentally distorted by their spouse or boyfriend, or partner women should answer back and take the initiative of filing complaints to the police otherwise helping guidelines from authority will always remain there.

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