❖Introduction Domestic Violence
Domestic violence, conjointly referred to as domestic abuse or intimate partner violence, is
often outlined as a series of behaviors that are accustomed to maintaining domination, power,
and management over the opposite partner. Domination is often an exploitation of varied
kinds of abuse, like physical, sexual, economic, and mental abuse, that cause the victims
damage and humiliation. violence will happen to anyone notwithstanding gender, caste, race,
age, or class. It will happen in any relationship like wedding, live-in-relationships, dating, or
living during a unit with members of the family. In some cases, violence might result in the
death of the victim or severe injury to their mental and physical state. Domestic abuse isn’t
solely a result of inflicting injury on the body, however, it can even involve emotional
blackmailing or torturing the victim.
Victims of violence usually hesitate to lift their voices against it as they’ll feel the hangdog of
filing a criticism against an individual United Nations agency is extremely concerning to
them or they’ll} feel unsure if their family or society will support them.
When somebody hears a case of violence, the primary assumption is that the victim could be
a girl. The term was and still is, accustomed to describing the physical assault committed by the
husband on the married woman. however, it’s not solely restricted to at least one gender. it’s
vital to know that violence will happen to anyone notwithstanding their gender. Domestic
abuse is often committed by the females on their male partners or their members of the
family. It can even happen during a relationship wherever each folk is of the identical gender.
Those that abuse their partners or members of the family are often of any category or caste.
We often, within the cases of the high category (or caste), assume that violence cannot
happen in their households as a result of they’re flush and educated. However, the
perpetrators of violence are often terribly literate and still feel a desire to abuse their partners.
What’s to be understood here is that this behavior to commit violence comes from a want to
manage or dominate the opposite partner. it’s nothing to do with the education or wealth of a
person.
Domestic violence happens once the victim and also the bad person share Associate in
Nursing intimate relationship, as antecedently mentioned. this may embody relationships with
partners, ex-partners, immediate members of the family, or family friends. That could be a
pattern of dominant behavior that tends to threaten the lifetime of the victims. Usually the
victims of abuse, within the name of affection, don’t elicit, facilitate, and conjointly as a result
of they’re dependent upon the offenders.
❖Kinds of domestic violence
➔ Physical abuse
Physical abuse includes inflicting harm on the body, like slapping, biting, pushing, burning,
strangling, throwing a heavy object on or near the partners, threatening to hurt some close
family member, etc.
➔ Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse occurs when a person wants to dominate and control their partners, and to do
this they hurt their partners by sexually exploiting them. In the name of marriage or love, the
offenders often forget about the term ‘consent’ and think they own their partner’s body.
Sexual abuse includes unwanted touching, forcing the partner to do something sexually that
they do not wish to do, denying to use any form of contraceptive measures, forcing to watch
pornography, taking pictures or recording videos without asking for consent, etc.
➔ Psychological abuse
Psychological abuse includes harming the mental health of the victim, like name-calling,
insulting, or verbally abusing alone or in front of people, controlling actions, regularly
threatening to leave, harassing by pointing fingers at their character, depriving the partner of
the necessities, etc.
➔ Financial abuse
Financial abuse occurs when the victim is dependent upon the other partner. The offender
tries to control the financial freedom of the victim by not providing them with basic
necessities sometimes.
❖Impact of domestic violence
In general, victims of repeated violence experience more serious consequences than victims
of one-time incidents. Women with a history of intimate partner violence are more likely to
display behaviors that lead to further health risks such as substance abuse, alcoholism, and
suicide attempts. Intimate partner violence is also associated with a variety of negative health
behaviors; studies show that the more severe the violence, the stronger its relationship to
negative health behaviors by victims.
❖Repercussion on Females
The females during this world represent the bulk of the victims of force. ladies in our country
and worldwide are subject to several varieties of abuse as a result of in line with the
offenders’ attitude, ladies square measure weak and don’t seem to be capable enough to fight.
Intimate partner violence is the most committed violence against ladies worldwide. In history,
ladies were thought-about because of the property of the husband or the burden on their
father, and then no legal provisions were there at that point to safeguard females from
domestic abuse. As mentioned at the start, at that point, it absolutely was thought-about okay
once the husband accustomed beat their partner or abused them verbally or sexually, as a
result of it absolutely was thought-about the correctness of the husband to treat their wives in
any way in which they like. Husbands thought-about their wives weak and that they
accustomed cast off all their aggression on them.
❖Legal provisions available for women
➔ Section 498A – Indian Penal Code, 1860
Many legal provisions have been enacted to protect women from domestic violence. In 1983,
domestic violence was incorporated in the Indian Penal Code,1860 under Section 498A. This
provision aims to protect women from domestic abuse by the husband or in-laws.
➔ The Protection of Women against Domestic Violence Act, 2005
In 2005, the Protection of Women against Domestic Violence Act was enacted to prohibit
various forms of abuse against women like physical, mental, or sexual abuse. Section 3 of the
The act defines domestic abuse as mental or physical injury to a person or abuse in any form or
harassing or threatening the person.
Section 2(s) defines the shared household as the house owned, taken on rent by the husband
, or the house which belongs to the joint family of which the husband is a member; this was
observed in the case of S.R. Batra v. Smt. Taruna Batra (2006).
This Act also covers women who are in live-in relationships. According to this Act, a suit for
domestic violence can be filed against any adult male member who has the power to threaten
the victim. This Act thus ensures that the females do not lose a roof over their heads if they
raise their voice against domestic violence and can support themselves.
➔ D. Velusamy v. D. Patchaiammal (2010)
In this case, the Supreme Court focussed on the definition of an aggrieved person that is
defined under Section 2(a). The court listed five points regarding the cases of live-in
relationships:
● In the eyes of society both the parties must behave like husband and wife and
should be recognized as husband and wife by society.
● Both the parties must be of valid legal age.
● Both the parties must be eligible to enter into marriage.
● They have lived together for a significant period of time and in a shared
household.
➔ Indra Sarma v. V.K.V Sharma (2013)
In this case, the court stated that the Domestic Violence Act is enacted to protect women from
abusive relationships and to prevent domestic violence from occurring in society.
➔ Ishpal Singh Kahai v. Ramanjeet Kahai (2011)
In this case, the Bombay High Court explained the objective of the Domestic Violence Act by
stating that the objective of the Act is to provide statutory protection to women victims of
violence.
➔ Mohd. Zakir v. Shabana & Ors (2017)
In this case, a petition was filed by the adult male under the Domestic Violence Act. The
High Court of Karnataka had held that any person whether male or female, aggrieved of the
domestic violence are eligible to invoke the provisions under this act. Later on, this verdict,
passed by Justice Anand Byrareddy, was withdrawn by him.
❖Domestic violence against men
The term force, although gender-neutral, however whenever we tend to hear it we tend to
presume girls as a victim. Even the lawmakers of our country have restricted force to crimes
against girls. This is often a result of stereotypic thinking that men square measure alleged
to be sturdy, they do not cry, and feminine cannot hurt a person. The males in our society
square measure seen by being known as disparaging names after they categorical their
emotions. Thus, however, can a person be ready to tell the globe that he has been obtaining
abuse in his own home? there’s no law to determine the cases for males if they suffer from
force or rape. Either our society thinks that a person can not be abused or raped, or they only
need to ignore this truth.
❖Why the existing laws on domestic violence are gender-biased
Human rights and gender equality say that no gender ought to lean preference, however
simply equality. In today’s modern times, once females also are obtaining equal rights and
opportunities a bit like men, they’re conjointly abusing their partners or menage members, be
it for cash, or for proving their dominance. These rights weren’t established so they will be
victimized by girls to harass or abuse their partners. In our country, force laws solely shield
girls from their abusers, however, no laws square measure obtainable to guard husbands or
alternative males. to market equality, there’s a desire to enact laws that may cowl violence
against men.
➔ P. Sasikumar v. Union Of India (UOI) (2018)
The Madras High Court recently reviewed the case of P. Sasikumar v. Union of India (UOI)
(2018) where Dr. P. Sasikumar, the Director of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences,
filed a writ petition against his wife. He was forced to quit his job due to the criminal
proceedings started by his wife accusing him of abusing her. The court observed that the wife
was harassing the husband unnecessarily even after the family court had rendered the
decision of divorce. But due to the non-availability of legal provisions, the husband remains
helpless in these kinds of situations.
Justice S Vaidyanathan stated that unfortunately there is no legal provision that allows a
husband to proceed against his wife concerning marital disputes. The cases of violence
against men mostly go unreported because men hesitate to file a complaint or share it even
with their close ones, as our society is male-dominated and it becomes hard to believe that
violence has been committed against a man. Often, the males get insecure to register a
complaint of abuse, as the females might take advantage of the laws that are enacted to
protect them. Limiting the laws like the Domestic Protection Act or Section 498 A of IPC to
women gives them an undue advantage to use these laws to cover up their offenses. The
majority of the violence indeed happens with a female but still, it does not mean that females
are not capable enough to abuse me
❖Conclusion
In this contemporary world, wherever girls are a unit as qualified as men and are becoming
equal opportunities, there’s a necessity to widen the scope of force and not limit its definition
solely to girls. In India, there’s such a lot of social pressure that someone struck by domestic
abuse typically stays quiet, be it a person or a girl. Our society has some created mental
notions concerning each gender and it looks to possess already been set however a person or
girl ought to be. It’s currently the requirement of the hour that the legislative assembly
conjointly acknowledges that a person may also be the victim of force. This can be conjointly
an enormous social issue that must be self-addressed by breaking the norms of society and
making awareness amongst folks.