Impact of Domestic Violence on Disabled Women
Discuss about the Family Violence Policy And Practice.
The domestic violence is the violence or abuse by the one person against the other person. It refers to the family violence, intimidating behaviour in a relationship. The domestic violence involves the social violence, physical violence, sexual and the mental violence. It is not because of drugs, alcohol, anger and psychological problem. Generally, it occurs when the some known person has the powers and the control over the other person. The women with disabilities and sexual assault are more to experience the domestic violence in comparison of the women without disabilities and sexual assault. The women are mostly abused by their known such as members of the family, partners and the ex-partners. The women with disabilities are not able to report abuse and about the sexual assault. The disabled women depend upon the abuser for the care (Kaur and Atkin, 2018).
There are some recommendations for the changes in the domestic violence with disabled women such as domestic violence improve the assistance for the disable women with concern about the family violence, Training to all disable women to use domestic violence risk assessment, appoint the advocates for develop protocol to give instruction about the disability and the domestic violence, promote the awareness among the disabled women, to ensure intensive case management for the disabled women, outreach programmes for the disabled women, give the employment to the disabled or deaf staffs, to provide education to the disabled women, impose the penalties for the family violence consistent and firm, increase funding to support service, give the face to face updates and the details on the internet and face to face meeting with disabled women. The NSW commission has made recommendations in relation to preventing and addressing family violence with disabled women. In the following parts, the service responses made by NSW government to address the domestic and family violence with disabled women are discussed and critically examined.
Make the women independent economically
There are so many women who live in the critical relationship. If the women cannot support themselves and their children then they may be homeless. At the time of the divorce, the financial distribution should be done by taking the kids and the financial condition of the women in the consideration (Boyle, 2017). The financial distribution is required to be fair. In the cases of the divorce, when a father wins the joint custody of the kid, women never take alimony. So to support the child, the policy is required to help the women financially. It can make big difference (Brown and Kerrie, 2014).
Changes in the way of family court
Recommendations for Change
Generally, the divorces are made because of the domestic violence. This issue is handled separately by the judicial system. The one magistrate presides over the matter of the divorce and other judge hears the case of the domestic violence. The magistrates of the family court who deal with divorce case do not have full detail, information and knowledge about the domestic violence allegations (Howe and Hargrave, 2014).
In present one family one judge approach consolidates the case hearing into the one place. But the family courts always cannot handle the family violence well. The excellent parents always want their kids to have secure and close relationship with the others parents. So the family courts reward the compromises and the settlements. The main issue is that parents do not want to agree to make settlement at middle because they want to secure their children from the abuse.
Not only the magistrates decide the facts of the issue of abuse but mental health professionals and custody evaluators also decide the facts of issue. The custody evaluators and the mental health professionals have knowledge and the experience to handle the cases of the family violence or domestic violence. The mental health professionals and the custody evaluators do not have the magic ability to decide the violence. They have no tests to decide that the abuser is lying. They are experienced and trained to see problem in relationships as mutual. It is required to give more special training to the family judges to handle the cases of the domestic violence (Eastel, Young and Carline, 2018).
Organise prevention programmes and study them
The researchers think that the best possible way to stop the abuse is to stop the people become abuser in the first place. There are many approaches which show promises. The youngsters and the children see and hear from their parents, their neighbours and their family members but they also get affected by their role models on the televisions. The researchers believe that it is possible to reach the children through their parents and the schools or the institutes (Tutty, Radtake and Ateah, 2017).
According to the Nancy Lemon, the lecturer at the University of the California Berkeley Law School and author a book on the domestic violence law, the theme of programmes and the policies should be the way of the treatment by men towards the women and the way to raise the men and boy to cry, feel the fear, show the fear and express their on weakness (Anderson and Patrick, 2017). The anger is not only the enough emotion for the boys and the males. This is the bad impact on the kids when they see crime and victims in home or nearby them. There is the risk for the children to become abuser in the future. There are some kinds of abuse specific to being the disabled person. They involve the factors which increase the powers of the perpetrators and powers of the disabled women. For example, improper or misuse of the medications, remove the battery of the wheelchair of the disabled women.
Challenges in the Family Court System
These policies and the programmes have positive results on the small scale. The best example is the boys who participated in the programme ‘Coaching Boys into Men’. They were no or less engage in the behaviour like the abusers. They also stopped their friends to become the abusers. The long term research needs the more fund for scaling up the policies and the programmes, intensives. One should not wait for the perfect research because it needs long term research. There are many policies and the programmes for the children and youngsters but don’t have details and enough data. So it needs more research (Nelson, 2018).
Maintaining the safe and secure housing
The disabled women who have experienced family violence should provide safe and the secure housing. They cannot afford housing in the metropolitan areas and their children cannot be stored until they have housing which they cannot afford. A number of different types of affordable safe and secure housing have been developed for the disabled women for the better standard of living. The safe and secure housing helps the disabled women to live independently (Robert, Chamberlain and Delfabbro, 2015).
There are many scope of improvement for better solution of domestic violence with the disabled women by an organisation (Bowen and Charlotte, 2017). Some important practices includes-
- Violence against women service (VAW) had taken the actions for the improvement with the organisation of the disabled people to develop the more effective research.
- Violence against women service made the collaboration with the organisations of the disabled women to develop the easy and simple understanding reading materials and describe the usefulness of these reading materials in the solution of the domestic violence.
- There are many agencies which make support to the disabled women so that they can understand the experience the abuse and can be able to use this violence against women services.
- The specialist services for the disabled women mainly at the risk of the marginalisation help to deaf and the older women.
- Some services are proactive in assisting the disabled women and the older women with troubles and the learning problems who were at the repeat risk by the perpetrators.
Conclusion
As per the above analysis it is cleared that the domestic violence including rape, sexual harassment and forced marriage happens to the disabled women throughout the entire life. There is no place where no family violence. It is more with the disabled women. The men use controls and threats over the women. The domestic violence affects the different women with different social status, different religion, income, financial status, disability and the sexual identification. The disabled women want support for the independent living and the empowerment. The support practitioners are required to assess the situations and provide the best solutions to allow the disabled women to live fearless and independently.
References
Anderson, S. K., and Patrick, L. (2017) invisibility of domestic violence among person with disabilities in human service profession. Rehabilitation professional, 25(1), pp. 146-155.
Bowen, E., and Charlotte, S. (2017) the prevalence and correlates of partner violence used and experienced by adults with intellectual disabilities: a systematic review and call to action. Trauma, violence and abuse, 34(4), 521-555.
Boyle, P. (2017) Unionists rally against domestic violence. Green left weekly, 11(56), pp 4-6.
Brown, J., and Kerrie, J. (2014) Therapeutic responses to domestic violence in Australia: A history of controversies. Australian and New Zealand journal of family therapy, 35(2), pp. 169-184.
Eastel, P., Young, L., and Carline, A. (2018) Domestic violence, property and family law in Australia. International journal of law, policy and family, 85(5), pp. 411-426.
Howe, K., and Hargrave, J. (2014). Inquiry into domestic violence in Australia. Australia: The Australia University press.
Kaur, J., and Atkin, N. (2018) Nexus between domestic violence and child protection: Multidimensional forms of the oppression impacting on the migrant and refugee women in Australia. Australian social work, 71(2), pp. 238-248.
McPhedran, S., Gover, A. R., and Mazerolle, P. (2017) A cross national comparison of police attitudes about domestic violence: A focus on gender. Policing: An international journal of police strategies and management, 40(2), pp. 214-227.
Nelson, J. R. (2018). The family violence with disabled women. Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
Robert, D., Chamberlain, P., and Delfabbro, P. (2015) women’s experiences of processes associated with family court of Australia in the context of domestic violence: A thematic analysis. Psychiatry, psychology and law, 22 (4), pp. 599-615.
Tutty, L. M., Radtake, H., and Ateah, C. A. (2017) the complexities of intimate partner violence, mental health and child abuse history for white, indigenous and visible minor candidates. Journal of interpersonal violence. 88(5), pp. 17-26.
Woodlock, D. (2017) the abuse of technology in domestic violence and Stalking. Violence against women, 23(5), pp. 584-602.