Domestic Violence

In the last few years, unfortunately, violence had turned really common in our society. Every day we can see in the news that there had occurred a violent act between couples. There is not only physical violence, like a punch or a kick for example; there is also emotional or psychological violence, such as verbal abuse, threats and denigration.

Here in Costa Rica, according to Rojas (2002), the most affected population is women, even though men are also victims of this. And the worst part of this issue is that it starts with verbal aggressions and then it becomes a vicious circle and it could end with injuries or even though dead.

Authorities are trying to fix this problem, for example in April 25th, 2007, it was created the “Ley de Penalización de la Violencia Contra las Mujeres” by the Asamble Legislativa, this law, creates a new juridical concept called femicide, which is a murder of women by their batterers, UNICEF (2000). But the dilemma it is not to crate some sanctions as a punishment, like 2 or 4 years for doing psychological violence.

Also, Costa Rica enacted the Law against Domestic Violence in 1996, which allows protective measures to be enforced without criminal or civil proceedings, with this law, anyone who inflicts psychological, physical, or sexual violence on a relative may be ordered out of the home and prohibited access to the victim, be temporarily barred from caring for, raising, and educating any underage children, have weapons taken, and be ordered to pay for the family's food, medical care, and any property that was damaged during the assault. In the year after the law had been in effect, over 7,000 legal actions involving domestic violence were reported. Creel (2001).

I think that the main problem is in our society, in our families, children saw their parents fighting and screaming between each other and they start accepting this and doing it in school and also in their futures relationships.

As a conclusion, this problem it’s happening in our society and it has to stop right now because there had died a lot of victims and the quantity rises on and on. So schools may had to implement some kind of activities involving parents with their children and also denounce with authorities when this trouble it’s had been occurring and not when maybe it would be too late.

Reference

Creel L. with special reporting by Lovera S. and Ruiz M. (2001).

Retrieved September 13, 2010, from

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2001/DomesticViolenceAnOngoingThreattoWomeninLatinAmericaandtheCaribbean.aspx

Rojas, D. (2002). Retrieved September 13, 2010, from http://www.scielo.sa.cr/scielo.php?pid=S1409-00152002000100003&script=sci_arttext

UNICEF. (2000). Domestic Violence against Women and Girls. Retrieved September 13, 2010, from: http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/digest6e.pdf