Domestic Violence against Women

A leading cause of death and injury worldwide is violence by intimate partners (Mills, 1996). A serious and extensive problem, it transcends all boundaries and occurs in all cultures. Still, there are societies, mainly in transition countries, where the issue has remained relatively invisible and is often unrecognized. Unlike street violence, which is generally considered a crime, family violence against women and children has been viewed as legitimate, acceptable and even desirable or it has been ignored because it occurs in the private sphere of the home. The same acts that would be punished if directed at a stranger, employer or acquaintance often go unchallenged when directed at women within the family. However, in the last decade, a growing number of organizations, agencies and institutions have come to understand that they have a key role to play in addressing violence. As a step toward increasing knowledge in this area, the present study seeks to gather qualitative information about current attitudes, perceptions and practices of domestic violence against women in Albanian society. There is no agreement on the definition of domestic violence. It varies considerably partly because acts of abuse take many forms and involve women and men as victims as well as perpetrators. However, official statistics reveal that women are more likely to be victims of spouse abuse and to sustain severe injuries than men (Population Report, 1999). The term "violence against women" refers to many types of harmful behaviour directed at women and girls because of their sex. In 1993 the United Nations offered the first official definition of such violence when the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. According to this definition, violence against women includes: any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life (UN Report, 1993). In this report we refer to domestic violence as violence perpetrated by intimate partners and other family members, and manifested through: Economic abuse includes acts such as the denial of funds, refusal to contribute financially, denial of food and basic needs, and controlling access to health care, employment, etc. (UNICEF, Innocent Digest, 2000). There is increasing consensus that abuse of women is best understood within a "gender "framework because it evolves in part from women's subordinate status in society. Women's unequal status is pervasive in patriarchal societies. Domestic violence is considered to be supported by the traditional and patriarchal mentality. The conjugal relationship in any patriarchal society is unequal