Literature Review

Critical Analysis of Domestic Violence in USA and KSA

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Critical Analysis of Domestic Violence in USA and KSA

Introduction

Below is a critical analysis of articles that focus on domestic violence in the United States of American and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The articles analyzed in this case tend to bring out a comparison of the case at hand between these two countries.

Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault in the U.S.: A Human Rights-Based Approach & Practice Guide

This article is a school-based research project report for the University of Miami, School of Law, which was written in the light of the women’s human rights against domestic violence. The fact is that numerous policies and rules touch on or address domestic violence in the United States. However, domestic violence, as well as sexual harassment, has seen women and the minorities suffer within the borders of the United States. The article gives a statistical analysis of individuals who get assaulted each year due to domestic violence, where the number was found to be 237, 800. From this article, it is learned that domestic violence affects not only the primary victim but also other people who are affiliated with them such as the relatives, and the community at large, as it is a violation of human rights (“Domestic Violence & Sexual…,” 2014). In 2002, it was found that domestic violence could cost the federal government of the United States $12.6 billion on solving cases in courts, treatment of the assaulted, and loss of productive working force.

This article also discusses the part that human rights activists, as well as the government, have taken to curb domestic violence constitutionally. The government has active agencies that legally operate by the U.S. Constitution to ensure that all residents of the United States have their rights observed and respected—including protection from abuse by intimate partners. In this article one also learns of the legal system that is followed in affirming human rights. For instance, when a domestic violence case arises, the solution should involve due diligence of the authorities to investigate the matter, concerning what human rights are violated and how they are violated (“Domestic Violence & Sexual…,” 2014). The suspect is arrested and tried in the court of law, and the victim gets compensated for the violated rights.

Domestic Violence in the United States

This is an 82-page report written by a group of scholars, more than ten of them, addressing domestic violence insights, especially against women. Among the issues discussed in the report include the functions of Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and how effectively it is used in the United States, analyzing whether it is helping in minimizing domestic violence or not. In this report, the weak points of VAWA are highlighted, such as failure of provision of court remedy for individuals who are victims of gender-based violence. Primarily, VAWA can be termed as a source of grants, which is non-binding to state laws. The group of authors addresses the reauthorization of VAWA in 2011.

Other details found in this work include how the criminal justice system of the United States works towards solving domestic violence cases, pointing out which policies are problematic and issuing a recommendation on improving the same. A child is considered in each domestic violence case. Another issue that is brought about by domestic violence is financial constraints. This article shows how much the federal government is involved in dealing with domestic violence issues especially in helping the victims and the ones affected such as the children as well as punishing the offender.

From this work, other rights are looked into, which include the reproductive health rights. Some domestic violence acts are based on the choices of some partners in the relationship to use birth control methods, as well as contraception and reproductive health services, whereas there are policies as well as financial obstacles, and restrictions, as well as a shortage of facilities where one can seek professional reproductive health services. In such a case bring up domestic violence, it is hard to solve. The effects and consequences are also highlighted, the major ones being health complications such as the development of trauma and depression to the victim, sustenance of physical injuries, suffering from children both socially, emotionally, and physically, loss of dignity and many more. Even though this case is focused on the United States, similar occurrences take place in other countries, except that the laws are different.

Future Without Violence: The Facts on Domestic, Dating and Sexual Violence

This article presents an overview of the prevalence of domestic violence in the United States. Among the statistical analysis collected in the article it is indicated that three women each day get murdered by their intimate partners each day. The number of females who got killed by their intimate partners in 2005 amounted to 1, 181. According to a report published by Center for Disease Control and Prevention published in 2008, it was indicated that there were two million women who had sustained injuries from domestic violence, which happens each year (Fund, 2009). The article conceptualizes the domestic violence to the effect is causes to teenage children, as well as children below we years.

This work relates domestic violence with teens’ engagement in behaviors that are out of order such as doing drugs, unhealthy diet behaviors, which can deteriorate their health conditions, suicidal thoughts and attempts, and influence of engaging in sexual behavior. A large number of children in the United States are affected by domestic violence. This article illustrates statistics where a survey conducted in 2007 indicated that there are 16, 458 children who stay in transitional housing facilities that have domestic violence taking place in them (Fund, 2009). 38 percent of children of 12 and below witnesses female victimization of domestic violence.

The uniqueness of this article is brought about by relating the case of domestic violence to not only the direct parties involved-say husband and wife, but also people who are close, and very vulnerable to the act are focused on, demographically. Also, the consequences of domestic violence, in this case, are looked into directly. Another key issue discussed in this article is emerging issues. One way is the technological advancement, which is also playing a role in domestic violence. For instance, staling is possible (Fund, 2009). Also, teen girls engage in inappropriate sexual behaviors such as sharing nude or semi-nude photos of themselves, which propagate an assailant to stalk such a teen and assault her sexually.

Intimate Partner Violence in the United States

Catalano (2006) first explains the prevalence of acts of violence by an intimate partner in the United States. The statistical and demographical findings in this work are presented in a tabulated form and also in a statement. Instances that show the prevalence of violence by intimate partners include the finding that about 1 in 10, equivalent to 9.4%, which 11.2 million women in the united states have ever been raped at least once in their lifetime by individuals who have ever been their intimate partners. These findings are more detailed where they further explain that 3.4 percent of the rape was facilitated through being drugged or fed with excessive alcohol, 2.5 percent being attempted but unsuccessful penetration, and 6.6 percent being forced and successful penetration.

Still about sexual violence, about one in every six women in the United States and everyone in 12 men has ever experienced sexual harassment. In figures, these are 19 million and 9 million individuals respectively. From sexual violence, Catalano secondly addresses physical violence where he states that there are approximately one in four women who experience physical violence from their intimate partners while the number of men stands at one in seven. Charts and graphs are also used in analyzing the information. Catalano also explains the means by which physical violence is enriched on partners, and weapons that are used in case violence occurs. Some means through which violence is enriched include slaps, kicks, beatings, burning, use of knife or gun, hair pulling, pushing or shoving, kicking with a fist or something hard, slummed against something hard, or chocked to suffocation.

Aggression is also deeply addressed by Catalano, where he put s comparison between men and women concerning who falls a victim of a certain act of aggression more than the other. For instance, a survey conducted in 2010, dating 12 months, shows that women acted angry in a way that seemed dangerous more than men, where the comparison score was 23.3 percent against 12.9 percent.

Domestic Violence in Communities of Color

The Women of Color Network, Inc. (WOCN) looks into domestic violence in the United States in a perspective that has not been commonly used by other scholars and researchers. This organization looks into the occurrence of domestic violence about socio-economic classes, ethnicity, and races. As defined by WOCN, domestic violence is seen as a pattern of behaviors that are usually aimed at wanting to control an intimate partner. They are found to involve stalking aggression, coercion, and physical violence. Various issues are found to contribute to domestic violence, which includes economic insecurity, limited education opportunities or achievement, language barriers, racism and racial discrimination, and isolation. Some of these problems only face the people of color.

However, WOCN is a women’s network, so their work only looks into the case of women alone. Nonetheless, unlike the whiles. African Americans in the United States are faced with some added up challenges on top of the ones that face the whites due to their color. WOCN also provides a statistical overview of violence against women of color where it highlights the findings of National Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), which shows that 9.5 percent of women of color have ever been stalked and 41.2% of them have ever been physically abused in their lifetime. Indeed, the statistics indicate the prevalence of physical abuse of women of color to be higher than that of all women in the United States in general.

The paper gives more detailed statistics that reveal that indeed women of color fall victims of domestic violence more than the white women of the United States. The research relates these demographics to the cultural history of the African Americans as well as the contribution or impact of politics to the prevalence of domestic violence among the women of color.

Women in Saudi Arabia: Status, Rights, and Limitations

Safaa Fouad Rajkhan (2014), A student at the University of Washington, Bothell conducted a study, where he summed up his findings and analysis, with his audience being women in the society of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) who are optimistic of living in a free society in future. The dedication of this study issues a clue of what is expected—that chances of unequal gender treatment may prevail in KSA’s communities (Rajkhan, 2014). Nonetheless, in looking at the actual content, the findings are not far from the expectations. For instance, the first time when a woman was issued with a lawyer’s license in the KSA was in 2013. However, the Saudi Arabian government is working towards improving women’s societal participation. But, by 2014, the population of women in Saudi’s workforce was less than 16 percent.

Indeed, as Rajkhan puts it, women’s freedom in the kingdom is extremely limited. The laws, if they remain the way they are, Saudi will have continued wasting away a lot of potentials that lies with women who are hardly allowed to participate in anything, including driving. Denial of women’s driving right limits their movements greatly. Women cannot be allowed to take part in communal political affairs leave alone national ones (Rajkhan, 2014). In summary, there are occupational, educational, legislative as well as social constraints, which act as great obstacles to women’s freedom and participation in the kingdom’s major development projects. Unless reforms are made in all these sectors, women’s abilities in this country will continue wasting away.

What can save women in this society is amending the constitutional rights of women and granting them freedom and access to various resources. Even though this work does not particularly address domestic violence, it gives a clear picture of women are treated in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When this is put against human rights/women rights, the kingdom’s rights are violated.

Domestic Violence and Child Abuse and Neglect in Saudi Arabia

The National Family Safety Program (NFSP) in collaboration with the National Guard Health Affairs(NGHA) of Saudi Arabia commissioned a study that would shed more light on the issue of domestic violence. The study was aimed at having a clear understanding of three major elements that pertain dealing with Child Abuse and Neglect (CAN) and Domestic Violence (DV). The issues are The first issue to study was how much aware people in Saudi Arabia are regarding the issue of DV and CAN, especially private organizations, professionals and employees (“National Family Safety…,” n.d.). The second issue addressed is to know of the standard operating procedures that are put in place to cope with DV and CAN in the Kingdom, and know to what degree they are implemented. The third aspect studied is getting to know how well the individuals dealing with domestic violence are trained in tackling DV and CAN.

The study took a sample size of 5, 075 individuals selected randomly from the general population of KAS. Professionals and employees of all levels were targeted in the study where others included intellectual males and females from learning institutions, court officials, hospitals, charitable organizations, and police departments.

The results of the study are statistically stated by use of tables, charts, and graphs. This was followed by issuing of conclusions and recommendations regarding the same. However, in amazing the results, cases of DV and CAN were not much prevalent in many institutions, particularly those that did not focus on dealing with domestic violence. The institutions that reported of witnessing domestic violence include hospitals such as King Faisal Specialist Hospital, NFSP, and the Ministry of Social Affairs (“National Family Safety…,” n.d.). But, the judiciary was found to have just 23% of the knowledge of domestic violence which is indeed a big difference from the 71 percent of the members of the general population’s finding of those who are aware of domestic violence. This means that very few cases of domestic violence are reported.

Domestic Violence Among women in Jeddah

From a research was conducted by Fageeh WMK (2017), regarding domestic violence against women in the city of Jeddah, southwest of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it was found that among the 203 women who re-recruited into the study, 34.0% of them had prevailed to domestic violence at least once in their lifetime. However, more of the violence was experienced emotionally rather than physically where it occupied 31.3 percent. 21.6 percent and sexual violence experienced physical violence by 4.8 percent. But from the who test, it is only one percent of women who sought help from the social service organization (WMK, 2017). The main objective of this study was to know the prevalence of domestic violence and the common health problems that are experienced by women in the city of Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The survey was conducted in a cross-sectional form on a period that started December 15, 2011 and ending May 30, 2012. Based on the results that were found in this study, it was found that indeed domestic violence prevails in Jeddah, but the population that seeks help is negligible. It would, therefore, be recommendable for policymakers to improve social support services, and encourage catering for abused women (WMK, 2017). Nonetheless, there was more qualitative evidence obtained from the study, which indicated that this plague is constantly increasing where according to reports from various health departments in the city, within the research period, there was found to have 50 to 70 percent increase in chronic stress-related ailments, gynecological, and central nervous system problems, which prevailed in women who reported to have been involved in domestic violence. This survey could indeed be used to represent the whole of the Kingdom mainly because the governance, rules, politics, and legislature authorities that run Jeddah are the same ones used in the Kingdom.

Health Impact of Domestic Violence against Saudi Women: Cross-Sectional Study

Just like in the other case above, this was cross-sectional research conducted by Dr. Ahmed Hamad Al Dosary (2016), the main difference being that this one covered the whole Kingdom and not a specific geographical area. According to Al Dosary, one of the major health issues cause in Saudi is domestic violence. Numerous health hazards develop in people who fall victims of domestic violence. Most of these complications are long term are they are found on women since they are the ones which are common victims of domestic violence in most cases. From a cross-sectional survey that was conducted between December 2013 and February 2014, 421 women were used in the collection of the findings (Al Dosary, 2016). All the participants were tool part of the survey willingly, which justified that the results obtained had a high percentage of accuracy.

A web-based survey system was used in collecting the data, which was followed by analysis of the data by the NorVold Domestic Violence Questionnaires (NOVAQ), where SPSS v.18.0 was used in analyzing the data. According to the findings, there was no trace showing a relationship between domestic violence and socio-demographic characteristics. However, more women who were not employed had been victims of sexual abuse more than the working ones. The abuse was found to correlate with basic health problems where the abused could visit doctors regularly they showed other problems such as insomnia, depression, and somatic symptoms (Al Dosary, 2016). From the research, it was concluded that the abuse was profound, where the effect was not just felt by the individual, but by the whole community. To cope with the DV and sexual abuse problems among women, community awareness has to be increased through campaigns and professionals dealing with domestic violence cases be equipped with professional skills to bring change.

Women’s Activism in Saudi Arabia: Male Guardianship and Sexual Violence

As the media of the west puts it, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is known of its oppression of children and women, by the rule of the law of the land, while compared to other democratic nations such as the United States. Some evidence of this, and which critiques use most is the aspect of forcing women to cover every part of their bodies while in public, and they are not allowed to drive. The United Nations has recently intervened and, and made the kingdom conform with changing some oppressive rules to women, such as the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), women are still highly restricted through legal means, identified as Sharia. Indeed, sharia is used in the judiciary system (Tønnessen, 2016). This is of course of the reason why domestic violence reporting is very low in the Kingdome. Women are discouraged from reporting since the Sharia, as well as the constitutional laws, favor against women about actions taken against them by their intimate partners.

Nonetheless, where the rights of women are considered, rape is merely put on the main agenda. However, the prevalence of rape in this Islamic state is common irrespective of it being considered a crime, punishable by death. However, according to the teachings of Islamic religion, when presenting a case of rape, one as to use two male witnesses, since a confession from a woman is disregarded. This is the reason why these cases prevail in the Saudi’s societal setting, but they go unreported (Tønnessen, 2016). Activists are battling this out by trying to have reforms of the laws made in favor of protection of women’s rights and to eliminate the highly prevailed oppression of women. However, this journey is tough since the oppression of women is integrated into the society’s social, cultural, traditional, and religious background of the Kingdom.

Conclusion

The above articles represent demographics, statistics, social, ethical, cultural, traditional, religions, and political factors, among others that affect domestic violence. About domestic violence, other issues related to this problem are highlighted such as child abuse, sexual harassment, oppression of women in the societal setting among others. The first five articles address this issue in the United States while the other five address the issue in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

References

Al Dosary, A. H. (2016). Health impact of domestic violence against Saudi women: cross sectional study. International journal of health sciences, 10(2), 165.

Bettinger-Lopez, C., Natelson, R., Brandt-Young, C., Carlson, K., Davis, G., Drew, M., Landy, R., Thomas, C., Soohoo, C., Rubenstein, J., Romes, A. and Park, S. (2011). Domestic Violence in the United States: A Preliminary Report prepared for Rashida Manjoo, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. [online] https://www.reproductiverights.org. Available at: https://www.reproductiverights.org/sites/crr.civicactions.net/files/newsletter/DV%20in%20the%20US_Br%20Paper%20to%20SR%20on%20VAW.pdf [Accessed 17 Feb. 2018].

Catalano, S. M. (2006). Intimate partner violence in the United States. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault in the U.S.: A Human Rights Based Approach & Practice Guide. (2014, August). Retrieved February 16, 2018, from https://www.aclu.org/other/domestic-violence-sexual-assault-us-human-rights-based-approach-practice-guide

Fund, F. V. P. (2009). The facts on domestic, dating and sexual violence.

National Family Safety Program & National Guard Health Affairs. (n.d.). Domestic Violence and Child Abuse and Neglect in Saudi Arabia . Retrieved February 17, 2018, from https://nfsp.org.sa/ar/awareness/DocLib/e.pdf

Rajkhan, S. (2014). Women in Saudi Arabia: Status, rights, and limitations.

The Women of Color Network, Inc. (2006, May 25). Domestic Violence in Communities of Color. Retrieved February 16, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5430237

Tønnessen, L. (2016). Women’s activism in Saudi Arabia: Male guardianship and sexual violence. CMI Report.

WMK, F. (2017, February 10). Domestic Violence among Women in Jeddah. Retrieved February 17, 2018, from https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/domestic-violence-among-women-in-jeddah-2167-0420-1000354.php?aid=85108\