Domestic Violence: Physical, Mental, Social & Sexual Abuse

Introduction: The Global Crisis of Domestic Violence

For every second of this speech, there are 3 people worldwide who fall victim to domestic violence.

Understanding Domestic Violence

Good morning/afternoon, youth delegates, invited politicians, and activists. I stand before you today representing Australia as the Australian youth delegate at the UN Youth conference of 2019. Today, I am the voice for all the young people of my country to inform you of a problem that confronts not just Australia but the world today and in our foreseeable future.

In order to create change, one thing we must all start accepting is that domestic violence is not just physical abuse; it’s mental abuse, it’s social abuse, it’s sexual abuse. It takes so many more forms than what we once believed. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016), in Australia alone, 1 in 4 women experience intimate partner violence of all shapes and forms. This leads me to wonder what goes on beneath each and every one of your noses. All the men and women who are meant to be your voice and serve as your representatives in parliament do nothing. Because if you turn a blind eye, you don’t need to spend government money on resources; if you turn a blind eye, it doesn’t really happen. Does it?

The Systemic Failure

Our law system claims to support those who are victims, but when it happens—and it constantly does—a blind eye is turned. Violence against men and women is such a significant health and social problem that affects all societies but often goes unrecognized and unreported in countries as it is still accepted as a part of normal behavior. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF, 2018) reports that there are 650 million women and girls in the world today who were married before the age of 18. In West and Central Africa, over 2 out of 5 young girls were married off before they were 18, putting them into harmful situations of social isolation. Her self-worth is no longer validated. She is no longer a person, merely an object, barely a family member. Consider the violence against these women. How would you feel if that were your daughter? If that were you?

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5, “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” So, I ask you once again, why is this still a problem?

Legal and Social Barriers

One common factor that affects the ability to prosecute the abuser, to incriminate them, is when they flip the situation and make the victim come across as the perpetrator when the police are called. There are multiple cases where this has led to the victim losing custody of their children, losing their family, and becoming homeless. In Australia, The Legal Service of Victoria (2018) reports that Victorian police are constantly mistaking the victim as the perpetrators. This leads to a new issue at hand. It allows orders and laws which are enforced to protect the victim to be made a mockery of, as they serve no purpose in the eye of the abuser. The incompetence of our law enforcement makes domestic violence the single largest reason for homelessness among women. Domestic Violence reports result in an emergency call for the police on average to occur once every two minutes across Australia. In 2017, 87,000 Women were killed worldwide, and more than half of those were cases of domestic violence (World Health Organization, 2018). 137 innocent women across the world become victims to something we could easily diminish every day if we had enough support.

Gender Stereotypes and Their Impact

But domestic violence is not just a problem seen within women; gendered stereotypes mean that men of our society do not receive the same support a woman does. When boys grow up, they are taught to ‘man up,’ to ‘tough it out’—masculinity has taught men that dealing with their issues is weak and vulnerable. This allows you to understand why men don’t speak out; it goes so unnoticed that many don’t know the facts. Studies have shown that 1 in 3 victims of domestic violence are male (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019). But because they are silenced, who knows how many more there could be? Women have always been considered the weaker of the genders, but in this dangerous situation, they have their own ways of inflicting pain on whomever they please. Throughout our history, government policies have only ever really assumed that the perpetrators are men and the victims are women, which is undeniably an old-fashioned view. As a community, we need to push past our outdated gender stereotypes to reduce all cases of domestic violence. Otherwise, there is no justice for everyone equally. It’s all our human right to feel safe and not worried for the safety of ourselves and our children.

Conclusion: A Call to Action

Why does this still happen? This is a health problem of epidemic proportions, and worldwide we are not doing enough. We are not protecting our men and women. We are not protecting our children or our future generations. It’s not something to be taken lightly—how many should be mentally scarred, tortured, and even murdered under the hand of someone they call family, and it remains okay. Why should we worry about tarnishing the name of the abuser when they have no problem in inflicting this sort of unspeakable pain on someone they are meant to love? Why are we still protecting the guilty?