Sexual Abuse Of Women In Australia - Essay Example

? Sexual Abuse of Women in Australia and Number: Due Introduction Significance of Sexual Abuse to the Woman and Her Health Status Violence against women is one of the least evident but most prevalent types of violence in the world. In Australia alone, violence in the home is the leading cause of death, disability, and illness among females between the ages of fifteen and forty-four. This means that a large number of men in that country do believe in using their physical might to intentionally abuse women either in private or in public. An undeniable link exists between this trend and the health statistics of women in that particular age group. Women who are constantly exposed to unrelenting abuse are likely to resort to drug use, anxiety-relieving substances to be specific, to assist them not to exist in a constant form of terror. They are also tobacco and alcohol users to a larger extent than the normal population as these substances relax the mind and disperse worry albeit for a short period of time. Women who live with violence also tend to suffer from phobias and somatic illnesses, offshoots of the tense situation in the home. These psychological effects can be as grave as the actual physical blows as they deal with how the victim’s mind interprets the treatment she is receiving from a partner who is supposed to be a protector. She may blame herself for being the cause of the unreasonable behavior of her spouse. She may also excuse his misbehavior as something he cannot control and to which she should get accustomed to. She may rationalize his cruelty especially if she was a witness to a close family member, such as a mother, withstand even harsher behavior from her father by observing to herself that at least she does not have it that bad. These kinds of conclusions will undoubtedly damage her psyche and muddle her own opinion of herself so that she actually begins to identify with her attacker and his actions. Self-loathing is a staple of such kind of individuals and many of them also participate in private and in self mutilation of themselves. This result of violence can persist even long after the woman has been separated from her spouse as it will consequently take a re-arrangement of her mind as to what she is and who she is before she can let go off the notion that she does not deserve to be punished. If vital counseling does not follow separation, the victim continues to do the attackers’ work on his behalf by attacking herself in his absence in order to continue fulfilling his desires. In a condition akin to the Stockholm syndrome, the victim will express sympathy with the views of her captor and even defend him when he is prosecuted for the harm he has caused her. A particularly insidious type of violence is suffered by pregnant women who have abusive spouses as it can trigger stillbirths, abortions, miscarriages, or pre-mature births. For some reason, it has been established by research in Australia that the incidence and brutality of violence meted on women by men is higher when those women happen to be pregnant. In an Australian survey of 400 women, 27% had experienced violence during the duration of their pregnancy (Easteal, 1998). Domestic violence has been found to have enduring impact on its sufferers and survivors. Those who survive it are plagued by a curiously powerful self-esteem that can completely cripple their lives so that they lose their capacity to believe in themselves totally. Maintaining a job can suddenly seem to be a daunting prospect to a victim who has been conditioned to believe that there is nothing of any worth that she can achieve (De Cruz, 2010). With loss of a job will come a lower standard of living, lost income and financial stability and a compromise on health standards for the victim and her children consequently. Recent data on the violence against women figures in Australia indicate a rise in physical and sexual assault cases. Since two years ago, when just below one third of women (29%) reported having experienced physical assault at spouse’s hands, the figures have jumped to 34%. More than one in five women claimed to have gone through sexual assault in 2009 as compared to one in four in the recent research carried out by The Personal Safety survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on 37,000 adults ( Sweetman, 1998). In this survey, certain facts were established as to the occurrence of the violence and which groups suffered it in what frequency. (a) It was established that women are most likely to suffer violence from men they knew and were related to, inclusive of fathers, brothers, and sons. (b) Younger women are at greater risk of suffering abuse than more mature ones. It was established that 12% of women under thirty years had experienced some form of violence compared to 6.5% of women over forty-five years of age. (c) It was established that women in the indigenous tribes, the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islander women, suffered more violent episodes,( 20%), than did the Australians of European descent (7%). (d) In spite of forming just two percent of the Australian population, aboriginal women accounted for 15% of the murder statistics in 2009. (e) Women with disabilities experience higher rates of intimate partner violence than do those who do not have disabilities. They are forty percent more likely to victimized than is the average Australian woman. They are also exposed to abuse that is connected to their disability, for example, denying them food, prescription drugs, gear that they use, access to communication with others and intimidating them with talk of institutionalization. (f) It was found that perpetrators of aggression against women with disabilities could comprise their own care workers. Nurses and the Abused Victims Nurses are specially empowered by their occupation to be in a position to greatly assist abused women. Appropriate questions that reflect the cultural environment will have to be created in order for them to establish where domestic violence is being perpetrated. Questions that enquire if the patient is frightened of her spouse or has ever suffered even minimal violence from him can put off some women and so many nurses develop the approach of establishing that it is just a routine way of questioning, and that it is put to every female client as statistics claim that one in four women is a silent sufferer of domestic violence. There are certain behavioral traits that also point out a victim to nurses (Ainscough and Toon, 2000). (a) A woman who will constantly visit the clinic claiming hazy and seemingly unending symptoms of a mysterious illness. (b) Injuries which appear inconsistent with how the woman claims she acquired them in the first place. (c) The presence of a number of injuries that seem in diverse stages of curing (d) Women who are constantly followed by their spouses or children when attending the clinic (e) Women who have aggressive and overbearing spouses when they attend the clinic A nurse who makes the discovery of abuse will seek to assess the situation to ascertain the history of abuse in the family and how safe the woman would be in her home if she returned after disclosing abuse to an outsider. The extent of the abuse, whether it is physical or psychological is also assessed. After that, the nurse, depending on how serious she assesses the situation to be, will disclose information about the location of safe houses, validate the victim and reassure her that she is not the cause of the violence, and get the details of her home and work place. Nurses have greatly contributed to the drive to end domestic violence. They have done this by advocating perpetrator programs that address the men responsible for the growing trends of violence, participating in early childhood prevention programmes that support violence free homes and by espousing and implementing community awareness campaigns to address violence in the home. The women’s safety agenda website addresses in four expansive categories the safety of women and how they can better receive justice, how their health can be safeguarded, how they can prevent themselves from being caught in unhealthy relationships in the first place. Women’s safety houses addresses are openly given to women in crisis who ask for them. In the site, testimonies from a range of domestic violence survivors is included to encourage the viewer as to the possibility of one day existing without fearing for her life. Call centre numbers are placed in the site to encourage suffering women to reach out for help and to be active participants in decisions that have to do with their own lives in order to slowly reintroduce them to the facet of being in charge of their own lives (Feuereisen and Pincus, 2009). In the perpetrator program, men address fellow men and encourage them to cease their destructive behavior and embrace policies that will be beneficial in the end. The men who run this program are trained male nurses who have been instructed about the high incidences of domestic violence and how to reach out and receive positive feedback from male perpetrators of violence. They are also aware of how to tend to their emotional needs especially if they initially reveal that they themselves may be reproducing behavior that they may have witnessed within the confines of their own homes when they were of an impressionable age. This is a very common theme that is repeated across many demographical lines. A male child will witness the humiliation of his mother in silence when he is a toddler or child. He is unable to do anything about it and feels bad for his mother while still wanting to identify with his father as the man in the house. He will feel torn, ultimately, wanting to support his mother, yet also unloyal to his father for not wanting to associate with him. In his adult hood, unless he faces his own demons, he is likely to unknowingly replicate the violent behavior he witnessed in his home within his own family (Boyle, 2005). Strangely, the men from violent families are the ones who initially swear never to lay a finger on their own future spouses most strongly. Yet most of the time, history proves too strong and it repeats itself across generations. Another policy nurses have espoused in the betterment of their community is a move to encourage neighborly responsibility so that prospective perpetrators of domestic violence are curbed from carrying out their twisted desires by the disapproval of the community. This is being implemented in the following ways: (a) Neighbors and the community at large are encouraged to participate in collection of data on incidences of violence among themselves so that they may witness it firsthand. (b) Programs on public awareness, intervention, and education are increased. (c) Detailing the costs domestic violence can incur like loss of standing in the community as well as housing and legal costs. (d) The intergenerational costs of domestic violence such as having one’s children imitate the perpetrator in espousing violence within their own family in their own generation Reference List: Ainscough, C. & Toon, K. 2000. Surviving Sexual Abuse: Practical Self Help For Adults Who Were Sexually Abused as Children. Da Capo Press. U.S.A. Boyle, K. 2005. Media and Violence: Gendering the Debates. Sage Publications. London. De Cruz, P. 2010. Family Law, Sex and Society: A Comparative Study of Family Law. Routledge. London. Easteal, P. 1998. Balancing the Scales, Rape, Law Reform and Australian Culture. The Federation Press. Sydney. Feuereisen, P. & Pincus, C. 2009. Invisible Girls: The Truth About Sexual Abuse. Seal Press. California. Sweetman, C. 1998. Violence Against Women. Oxfam. Oxford. Read More