Sunday, 25 October 2009

• Types of Abuse: Did You Know?

   
  

  
  All forms of domestic abuse have one purpose: to gain and maintain total control over the victim. Abusers use many tactics to exert power over their spouse or partner: dominance, humiliation, isolation, threats, intimidation, denial and blame.
  
      * Direct physical violence ranging from unwanted physical contact to rape and murder
      * Indirect physical violence may include destruction of objects, striking or throwing objects near the victim, or harm to pets
      * Mental or emotional abuse including verbal threats of physical violence to the victim, the self, or others including children, and verbal violence including threats, insults, put-downs, and attacks
      * Nonverbal threats may include gestures, facial expressions, and body postures
      * Psychological abuse may also involve economic and/or social control such as controlling the victim's money and other economic resources, preventing the victim from seeing friends and relatives, actively sabotaging the victim's social relationships, and isolating the victim from social contacts.
  
  Physical violence
  
  Physical violence is the intentional use of physical force with the potential for causing injury, harm, disability, or death, for example, hitting, shoving, biting, restraint, kicking, or use of a weapon.
  
  Sexual abuse
  
  Sexual abuse is common in abusive relationships. is divided into three categories: The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that between one-third and one-half of all battered women are raped by their partners at least once during their relationship. Any situation in which force is used to obtain participation in unwanted, unsafe, or degrading sexual activity constitutes sexual abuse. Forced sex, even by a spouse or intimate partner with whom consensual sex has occurred, is an act of aggression and violence. Furthermore, women whose partners abuse them physically and sexually are at a higher risk of being seriously injured or killed.
  
  Some examples of sexual abuse include:
  
     1. Use of physical force to compel a person to engage in a sexual act against his or her will, whether or not the act is completed;
     2. Attempted or completed sex act involving a person who is unable to understand the nature or condition of the act, unable to decline participation, or unable to communicate unwillingness to engage in the sexual act, e.g., because of underage immaturity, illness, disability, or the influence of alcohol or other drugs, or because of intimidation or pressure; and
     3. Abusive sexual contact
  
  Emotional abuse
  
  Emotional abuse (also called psychological abuse or mental abuse) can include humiliating the victim privately or publicly, controlling what the victim can and cannot do, withholding information from the victim, deliberately doing something to make the victim feel diminished or embarrassed, isolating the victim from friends and family, implicitly blackmailing the victim by harming others when the victim expresses independence or happiness, or denying the victim access to money or other basic resources and necessities.
  
  People who are being emotionally abused often feel as if they do not own themselves; rather, they may feel that their significant other has nearly total control over them. Women or men undergoing emotional abuse often suffer from depression, which puts them at increased risk for suicide, eating disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse.
  Economic abuse
  
  Economic abuse is when the abuser has complete control over the victim's money and other economic resources. Usually, this involves putting the victim on a strict "allowance, "withholding money at will and forcing the victim to beg for the money until the abuser gives them some money. It is common for the victim to receive less money as the abuse continues. This also includes (but is not limited to) preventing the victim from finishing education or obtaining employment, or intentionally squandering or misusing communal resources.
  
  Stalking
  
  Stalking is often considered a type of psychological intimidation that causes a victim to feel a high level of fear.
  
  Did you know?
  

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