What Is Domestic Violence? (Part VIII)

Under-reporting

DV is among the most under-reported crimes worldwide for both men and women.  A 2011 review article by intimate partner violence researcher Ko Ling Chan found men tended to under-report their own perpetration of domestic violence while women were more likely to under-report their victimization and over-estimate their own violence perpetration.  Financial or familial dependence, normalization of violence, and self-blaming were found to reduce the likelihood of self-reporting victimization in women. By contrast, fear and avoidance of legal consequences, the tendency to blame their partner, and a narrative focus on their own needs and emotions reduced the likelihood of self-reporting perpetration in men.

A 2014 study conducted across the 28 member states of the European Union found that only 14% of women reported their most serious incident of intimate partner violence to the police.  A 2009 report on DV in Northern Ireland found that "under-reporting is a concern and domestic abuse is the least likely of all violent crimes to be reported to the police".

Men face additional gender related barriers in reporting, due to social stigmas regarding male victimization, and an increased likelihood of being overlooked by healthcare providers.

Social influences

Cultural view

How domestic violence is viewed varies from person to person, and from culture to culture, but in many places outside the West, the concept is very poorly understood. This is because in most of these countries the relation between the husband and wife is not considered one of equals, but instead one in which the wife must submit herself to the husband. This is codified in the laws of some countries – for example, in Yemen, marriage regulations state that a wife must obey her husband and must not leave home without his permission.

According to Violence against Women in Families and Relationships, "Globally, wife-beating is seen as justified in some circumstances by a majority of the population in various countries, most commonly in situations of actual or suspected infidelity by wives or their "disobedience" toward a husband or partner."  These violent acts against a wife are often not considered a form of abuse by society (both men and women) but are considered to have been provoked by the behavior of the wife, who is seen as being at fault. While beatings of wives are often a response to "inappropriate" behaviors, in many places extreme acts such as honor killings are approved by a high section of the society. In one survey, 33.4% of teenagers in Jordan's capital city, Amman, approved of honor killings. This survey was carried in the capital of Jordan, which is much more liberal than other parts of the country; the researchers said that "We would expect that in the more rural and traditional parts of Jordan, support for honor killings would be even higher".

In a 2012 news story, The Washington Post reported, "The Reuters TrustLaw group named India one of the worst countries in the world for women this year, partly because domestic violence there is often seen as deserved. A 2012 report by UNICEF found that 57 percent of Indian boys and 53 percent of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 think wife-beating is justified."

In conservative cultures, a wife dressing in attire deemed insufficiently modest can suffer serious violence at the hands of her husband or relatives, with such violent responses seen as appropriate by most of the society: in a survey, 62.8% of women in Afghanistan said that a husband is justified in beating his wife if she wears inappropriate clothes.

Acceptance of male partner's right to hit or beat a female partner among women aged 15–49 in Arab and Muslim majority countries, UNICEF, 2013.

According to Antonia Parvanova, one of the difficulties of dealing legally with the issue of DV is that men in many male dominated societies do not understand that inflicting violence against their wives is against the law. She said, referring to a case that occurred in Bulgaria, "A husband was tried for severely beating his wife and when the judge asked him if he understood what he did and if he's sorry, the husband said "But she's my wife". He doesn't even understand that he has no right to beat her."   UNFPA writes that:   "In some developing countries, practices that subjugate and harm women – such as wife-beating, killings in the name of honour, female genital mutilation/cutting and dowry deaths – are condoned as being part of the natural order of things".

Strong views among the population in certain societies that reconciliation is more appropriate than punishment in cases of domestic violence are also another cause of legal impunity; a study found that 64% of public officials in Colombia said that if it were in their hands to solve a case of intimate partner violence, the action they would take would be to encourage the parties to reconcile.

Victim blaming is also prevalent in many societies, including in Western countries: a 2010 Eurobarometer poll found that 52% of respondents agreed with the assertion that the "provocative behavior of women" was a cause of violence against women; with respondents in Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Slovenia being most likely to agree with the assertion (more than 70% in each of these countries).