Domestic Violence
The Department
of domestic violence defines domestic violence as a concoction of behavior that
is abusive used by one partner in any relationship aimed at gaining or maintaining control over another intimate
partner. It comes in many forms which include physical, sexual, emotional and
economic abuse. This heinous act mainly affects women and children. Women
throughout the world are subjected to life-threatening acts of physical
violence every day (McQuigg, 2011).
Domestic violence is a
crime that stretches across borders, cultures, nationalities and race. The most
prevalent form is battering of women by men. Violence against women treated as
a human rights violation is an emergent principle in International human rights
law. This fledgling jurisprudence manifests two specific forms of gender-based
violence- mass rape as a crime against humanity or war crime and female genital
mutilation as a human rights violation (Meyersfeld, 2010). This paper seeks to
interrogate why domestic violence ought to be treated as an international
crime.
National
governments all over the world have rendered themselves to the enactment of
legislation to address this rampant social vice. However, the implementation of
such legislation has faced and continues to face numerous bottlenecks ranging
from male chauvinist cultures to the intimate nature of this crime. Honor
killing that involves murdering of women in the name of family honor, for example,
is a ritual performed each year especially in the Middle East. This practice
was condoned under the rule of fundamentalist Taliban government. Moreover, the
fact that the murders are conducted by teenage brothers of the victims makes it
even more difficult to prosecute the perpetrators because they are minors.
There is need therefore to treat domestic violence as an international crime to
counter such tailbacks as presented above.
There
exists a strong correlation between conflict and rape. During war, children and
women are highly susceptible to rape, forced pregnancy, sexual exploitation and
trafficking. In fact, rape is used a war tactic intended to destroy women, as
well as their families. In 1994, for example, the genocide in Rwanda saw
thousands of women and children raped. A similar case has been reported in
Darfur. The perpetrators of this injustice have to this day not been brought to
book. This underscores the importance of treating domestic violence as an
international crime which would see justice served to the victims (Schneider
& Dalton, 2008).
Legislative gender
discrimination is yet another eminent form of domestic violence. In Iran, for
example, many laws that discriminate against women have been enacted over the
years. These laws deprive the women of equal rights to child custody, divorce
and equal pay. A case of the arrest of Esha Momeni, an Iranian-American student
at California State University/Northridge is an example of how women rights
activists are treated. They are arrested and charged with "endangering
state security" as "agents of Western powers". The state laws
coupled with systemic failure by prosecutors necessitates the redefinition of
domestic violence as an international crime (Meyersfeld, 2010).
In
conclusion, due to the financial, social and political disparities between men
and women, the latter mainly occupy the private jurisdiction where violence is
apparently more ordinary than other crimes and less obnoxious. Legal
infrastructure designed to discriminate between private and public law, are as
a result, inept to assist the victims of domestic violence. There is there an
urgent need, therefore, to conceptualize domestic violence as a crime in
international law to elicit a refashioning of the legal reaction both internationally
and nationally.
REFERENCES
McQuigg, R. J. A. (2011).
International human rights law and domestic violence: The effectiveness of international human rights law. Abingdon,
Oxon, England: Routledge.
Meyersfeld, B. (2010). Domestic violence and international law.
Oxford: Hart.
Schneider, E. M., &
Dalton, C. (2008). Domestic violence and
the law: Theory and practice. New York: Foundation Press.
1 comments:
Very helpful article, also wanted to add, if your husband is abusive to you, do not tolerate it! Get help and do an online divorce, you have that right. Go to an online service and filling divorce forms.
EmoticonEmoticon