Luuk L Westerhof
Domestic violence is put together by patterns of behaviors used in a desperate attempt to gain and maintain power and control over another human being within the context of a relationship, mostly a love or intimate relationship. From this perspective domestic violence does not discriminate, it can happen to anyone. Domestic violence is a huge global problem and affects people from all levels of society, socioeconomic, cultural, educational, emotional etc. Domestic violence is exercised both physically, sexually, materially, psychologically, latent and as counter abuse. Societal institutions like CPS (Child Protective Services) and prison represents to certain degree unclearness due to the fact that they both exercise the implementation of sanctions, help and therapy. CPS and prisons strip people from their autonomy, the right to selfdetermination, work and children (indirectly, of course), they cooperate with district attorneys, prosecutors, prison and secret services-creating ambiguous roles who are difficult to handle. In this article I will attempt to describe what abuse is, its nature, how to recognize domestic violence and how we can meet people that experience domestic abuse. How can we help people that have been subjected to domestic violence from a collaborative approach? there are many interpretations on the subject of domestic violence and I will by no means postulate that my version is an exhaustive one, it’s just one way at looking at the subject hoping that it will contribute to a greater awareness on the topic and contribute to a more extensive development of skills enabling us to combat the crime of domestic violence, successfully.
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