Today, being day five of The 16 Days Campaign to end domestic abuse and violence against women, I would like to share how domestic violence is not just a problem within a family, but within the entire community—every community.
Intimate partner violence, also known as domestic abuse, is a major public health problem, but more than that, when a child or young woman first experiences abuse or violence, it closes her off from the vital support she needs and opens her up to even more abuse and physical and mental health problems. It becomes a vicious cycle, and we must break this cycle for ourselves, for our daughters, for the sake of all.
Many who experience domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and violence at the hands of the ones they love also experience physical injury, depression, anxiety and panic attacks, sexually transmitted diseases, complications during pregnancy, and many other health consequences related to the added stress, such as irritable bowel syndrome and other digestive disorders, chronic pain and headaches, difficulty sleeping, substance abuse, post traumatic stress disorder, and suicide attempts.
It is a very complicated personal and societal problem, but it is also a problem that we must face head-on, if we ever expect to eradicate it from our families, our community, and from the world as a whole.
Intimate partner violence takes a heavy toll, not only on the victim, but on the family and all of society.
Being fearful of a loved one and being constantly concerned for one’s safety and the safety of one’s children is a tragic way to live. Yet one of the tactics an abuser uses is to cut his victim off from outside help.
There are many societal effects of domestic violence.
A woman who has been abused in the past, will oftentimes find herself in another violent or abusive relationship. Her self-esteem will have suffered and because of this, she will not be the fully productive member of society that God intended for her. For each person is special and each person has a specific purpose in the eyes of God. When we allow ourselves or another woman to continue in a life of abuse, we are not lifting high our/her God-given rights and gifts. If children live in abusive situations or unsafe situations, we teach them that this lifestyle is acceptable and that there is no other way. But when we love and nurture a child, we can bring them out of this mindset.
In abuse situations, the proper family values are not being passed along, but instead a grotesquely twisted version of respect evolves, where children believe they must protect their parents at all costs, if they want their tenuously small measure of safety to remain intact.
We can heal a society of this problem.
Unfortunately an attitude of “Not my job” has infiltrated our world. Individuals believe the responsibility is up to the government or social programs, and the government balks and the social programs scream because they are wearing thin.
But then there are the individuals who scream that the government should stay out of the family. Yet these same folk, are they willing to step up and help a woman or child or even a man out of the muck of domestic violence and into the light of a better life?
I will leave that question asked and unanswered because I am getting fairly close to judging, and I do not want to go there.
We must put our action where our mouth is. That is the bottom line with any problem we face in this world.
We must put our action where our mouth is.
It does no good to simply say its a shame that violence and abuse are prevalent in our world. It only does good if we act responsibly on our words. We must do all we can, if we expect this problem to be resolved.
My prayer for you today is for you to ask yourself in your heart, “If not now, when?”
In His Name,
Jennifer Joy
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