Domestic Violence Within The Asian Community - 2203 Words

Domestic violence within the Asian community in Auckland, New Zealand, is a very serious social epidemic and needs to be recognized as abusive and a crime. It is a variety of behaviors operated by partners, family members, or within other close relationships. It includes physical abuse, sexual abuse and psychological abuse, which includes harassment, bullying, threatening, and allowing or causing the child to see any of the abuse done to a person. It robs women of their human rights, it takes away the safety they had at home, and it can kill. Domestic violence is known as a â€Å"crime of silence† (Pillai 2001) and because of this, criminals don’t take full responsibility for their actions, and continue to perform violent acts. It can also†¦show more content†¦About half of the murders in the country have to do with domestic violence. There are approximately 5% Asian immigrants and refugees in New Zealand, and of those, there are 80,000 women and children (Pil lai 2001). Asian communities look at domestic violence as normal, and a way to show dominance in the household. It is a sensation that is not talked about and even denied, because they think of it as a private matter. Domestic violence is not seen as abuse and it’s seen as common in marriages. The women are responsible for productively maintaining their relationships. If women go about their role as good wives, mothers, or daughters in law, then they won’t have any problems. Asians think that if a woman gets in trouble with her husband, it’s her fault because she is responsible. There are research studies that show that 90-97 percent of domestic abuse is performed against women by men (Pillai 2001). Women who are abused are sometimes scared to talk about their abuse and violence, or even report it, so there is silence around domestic violence in Asian communities in New Zealand. Some women don’t know where to look for help, and some are afraid to talk to the police or the law to help them. The violence women experience in domestic abuse can be life threatening, and even long term. The types of injuries women are exposed to are horrendous. These injuries are followed by emotion, psychological, and sexual abuse (Fergusson, Horwood, Ridder 2005). Family