Answer To: INTERNATIONAL STUDIES – INDEPENDENT ISSUE REPORT RESEARCH FILE Country 1 Ref. Country 2 Ref....
Taruna answered on Sep 17 2021
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A Comparative Overview of Domestic Violence in Australia and India
Introduction
Violence against women is one of the major social issues that need formal addressing across globe. In fact, the developed nations, to some extent, have implemented policies and legal frameworks to implicate strict laws against domestic violence (Loxton et al; 2008). Recognized as the physical and mental assault over women through various means like sexual abuse, physical harm or damaging the property, domestic violence has as many forms as possible. Even at workplaces, the true spirit of feminism appears to be in a compromising state where women has to suffer from the male ego; they are harassed on mental and physical bases without any purpose (Mitchell, 2011). The overall perception of domestic violence against women, in Australian and in Indian context, should be examined under the concepts of traditional social structure, the intervention programs which address the issue positively as well as through social awareness programs that help people realize that domestic violence and gender discrimination both are against the essence of social progress.
Background
At first, it is significant to note here that the issue of domestic violence is not related to one sphere of the world; it is the conventional feeling where males—no matter to which territory they belong—feel that they are the influential factors in society and it is in their right o perceive that woman is subjected to give birth and take care of the children. Mostly, the abilities of women remain subdued. Globally, the stats of domestic violence are mixed; in developed nations like United States, the cases reported for domestic violence have been reduced by 30% per decade since the past two to three decades, as per the report of United Nations women cell (WHO, 2019).However, still, the national context of American societies does not approve that domestic violence is abolished from their traditional social values; the only factor is that the nature of violence has now evolved, as the time has passed. Also, the number of cases reported is taken for stats here; there are several other cases which have not been reported to the government. Thus, the global context of the issue revolves round the mixed data which shows progressive thinking replacing the male biases against woman who are actually responsible for encouraging domestic violence (The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018).
Domestic Violence: Australian Context
In the context of Australia, “Domestic and family violence and sexual assault occurs across the Australian community. It is acknowledged that some groups of women experiencing violence will have limited access to services or have specific needs that generalized strategies do not account for. Additionally, the women in these groups are often at increased risk of violence. The National Plan recognizes the diversity of the needs of women with disabilities, young women, women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, Indigenous9 women, same‐sex attracted women and older women, and provides scope to tailor responses based on individual needs”( Council of Australian Governments, 2018).
The pandemic outbreak of Covid19 has transformed the perception about the domestic violence as social issues. Now, in the light of the fact that pandemic has pushed the limits of stress for people, it is implied that the nature of violence against woman has changed and it is clearly associated with the factors like intimate partner based violence due to over stress, loss of job and time spent together during lockdown. Apart from the general research conducted at international level, the cases of domestic violence are not reported in regions like Queensland and NSW in March and April 2020 (Vic Health, 2017).
However, the agencies involved in the process of surveying the scale of domestic violence and its prevalence have admitted that during the lockdown period, the victim and offender got time to spend together which encouraged conflicts to be risen among them i.e. conflict of ideas became the first source of domestic violence against woman. Stress was marked as the second factor because during lockdown most of the males and females professionals lost their jobs and it left them with depression. The other causes of domestic violence remain same in Australia; the gender discrimination at work as well as the ideological conflict of male and female in which, male ego constitutes the major part of the domestic violence (National Criminal Justice Reference...