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Violence against women is a combination of all the abuses suffered by women that under mine their rights and individuals in a society.

Domestic Violence is one form of violence against women. Women suffer different forms of violence in the domestic sphere violence against women is not restricted to a certain class (thus regrets the common belief that women who suffer violence are poor women as women from different levels of the society suffer from different forms of violence the most common type pf domestic violence is spouse abuse this can come in different forms. It can be psychological physical verbal or non verbal.

Domestic violence in the time past and even among some people is viewed as a private affair thus it should not be brought to the fore it should not be brought to the public sphere this “this is the reason why many women suffered in silence” a very long time because when the city out there are told to go home and settle their affairs with their spouses.

Some violence women suffer include Rape, battery, incest acid attack, widowhood rite wife inheritance early marriage Bride Price to mention but a few we are going to concentrate of two in this discuss they are rape and Battery. Rape is any forced sexual under course by this we mean penile vaginal penetration it can be through coercion, manipulation or physical force there different types of rape they are mental rape group rape date rape and going rape all these form of rape the one that receives the least attention is marital rape. Thus is because the woman is seen as belonging to a man thus he has a hold over her.

Some people say the effect of rape is exaggerated and others blame rape on the victims this school of thought believe that rape is the victims of fault because she must have done some thing to invite it or lured the man into raping her. There was this girl that was raped she was going on an errand and had the misfortune of taking a lonely Path a notorious man that always rape girls in the area pounced on her and raped her she were served to tell any body but her school councilor who called the father and advised the father to take her to GPI for proper counseling the father did the father allowed her join but we decided not to take up the ease the father said he does not want the culprit brought to book as this will traumatize and stigmatize her so because of the problem of stigmatization of rape victims the problem is hardly addressed.

The second problem is spouse battery this is where one spouse is subjected the verbal and non verbal and physical assault spouse battery has the side effects of reducing the self esteem of victim and traumatizing them in most eases spouse abuse physical and this is mostly meted out by the physically stronger partner and weaker. 92% of spouse abuse victims are women this is because we are in a patriarchal society where the women have no voice they are economically and socially disempowered and it is a traditionally accepted practice for a man to beat his wife to put her in line whenever she misbehaves so spouse abuse is a tremendous problems that has lead to hospitalization of it’s victims and sometimes death. In some cases these victims are not able to have their abusive partners because of an away of different reasons they are economic dependence fear of stigmatization from society as a result of divorce

Not wanting to be separated from their children
Fear of being called loose women
Fear of further harm by their husbands if they leave. These are some of the reasons that keeps most victims tied to their husband in spit of the abuses. However self blame tops the list of these reasons because the woman mostly feels there is something she is not doing right that has resulted in her being abused this was the case with a woman that attended the same fellowship with me she always reported to our fellow ship leader that her husband was always beating her. We were told to always pray for her and her after a while she stopped coming to meeting and a team went to visit her on getting there it was another woman that answered the door when asked where the woman was she said show no longer lived their she was very hostile and unreceptive so the team went to find out from the neighbors who told them that the woman had died that one night she came home to meet that her husband had brought another woman into her matrimonial bed a fight ensued and they both beat her till she became unconscious and did not take her to hospital when the neighbor took her to the hospital the next day it was already too late she died and then man married another woman shortly after. Through the family of the woman took up the case it did not bring the woman back to life. It is easy to say why did she not leave the abusive relationship. But what structure are there to support her to leave, is if the parents that will tell her every one endures such and buttress it with their own story. Or the church that will tell her be patient tolerant and prayerful? Or it is the patriarchal society that has helped disempowered the woman to the level o f not seeing herself as a full human being except she is famished by a man? This is the unspoken reality of a lot of women.

Conclusion
Spouse abuse and Rape are both very detrimental to the health of the woman this thus the woman should be empowered economically and there should be structures in place that will help her leave an abusive relationship structures like shelter 4 abused women. And more women should be enlightened not to stigmatize women who are divorced.

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