Domestic violence is any act of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occurs within a family or domestic unit, or between former or current spouses or partners. It mainly includes two types of violence: partner violence between current or former partners or spouses and intergenerational violence, which usually occurs between parents and children.

Violence against women is a violation of women’s human rights and a form of discrimination against women. It is violence that is perpetrated against women because they are women or that affects women disproportionately more. It encompasses various forms of violence experienced by women, such as violence against women in intimate relationships, trafficking in women, sexual violence and rape, sexual harassment, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and others. It includes acts that cause physical, psychological or sexual harm or suffering to women, threats of such acts, coercion and other denial of freedom, whether in public or in private life. Its background is the historically unequal distribution of power between men and women in society.

Violence against women in intimate relationships is one of the most common forms of violence against women. For women, intimate relationships represent a space in which the risk of being subjected to violence is higher than anywhere else. It is violence that is perpetrated against women by their current or former partners and husbands.

Violence against women in intimate relationships can take many forms, but in an abusive relationship it is rarely just one of these forms – it is usually a combination of several forms of violence.

Physical forms of violence range from slapping, pushing, kicking, hitting, hair pulling, burning, pushing out of windows, balconies, hurting with objects, weapons, etc. As a result of physical violence, injuries of varying degrees and severity occur, ranging from bruises, contusions, lacerations, broken bones, injuries with long-term health complications and various chronic diseases. Physical violence can lead to fatal consequences – the murder of women and children. Physical violence also takes hidden forms, such as threatening physical violence (picking up/raising hands), throwing objects close to women or children and other forms of physical threat that do not leave injuries.

Psychological forms of violence include threatening to murder women/children, threatening suicide, kidnapping children, harming family or acquaintances, intimidating a woman, verbally humiliating her, calling her names and insulting her, harassing and stalking a woman, constantly criticising and controlling her.

Social isolation is a serious form of psychological violence. The abusive man prevents and forbids his partner from contact with her family and acquaintances. He often slanders and belittles his partner at work and at various institutions where the woman seeks help. Contact is also denied through monitoring of telephone calls, movement, prohibition of access to the Internet, prohibition to go to work, etc. Under the influence of targeted social isolation, relationships with the close people, family and acquaintances are broken or weakened, thus narrowing the possibilities where a woman can seek help and support.

Economic forms of violence are those behaviours that result in unequal access to and control over the family’s finances. The man does not contribute to the care of the children and the household, decides on the use of joint finances himself, prevents the woman from accessing joint assets, puts the family in debt with loans, etc. As a result of economic violence, the woman has limited financial resources to cover all household and children’s expenses and is often forced to take out various loans to pay for essentials, thus increasing the existential threat to the woman and the children. Women and children often have a lower standard of living than the violent husband/partner/father.

The aim of sexualised violence is not sexual gratification but complete control over the woman’s body. This includes forms of violence such as forcing sexual intercourse or other sexual practices, rape, forcing women to have sex with or in front of other men, etc.

Stalking is a special form of violence that occurs during a relationship, but often also long after it has ended. Forms of stalking include physical stalking of the woman – watching where and with whom she goes; constantly waiting outside work or the house; controlling the woman through frequent phone calls, text messages or emails.

The aim of a man’s violent behaviour towards his partner is to achieve absolute power and control over her life, opinions and body. In order for the abusive man to achieve total power and control, he needs to completely weaken the woman’s personality, her self-confidence and her efforts to act against the violent behaviour. The abusive man gains power and control using certain patterns of behaviour.

Isolation

A woman’s contact with her family and other close people presents possible sources of support and help for her. The abusive partner therefore tries to isolate the woman from sources of information, material assistance and emotional support. Gradually, he isolates the woman from her family and close people.

Maintaining fear and terror

Constant fear and terror is achieved by a man who behaves abusively using direct violence or threats. He threatens the woman with death or serious bodily harm. He may also threaten to kill the children, the woman’s parents, or threaten to commit suicide.

Humiliation and defamation

The abusive man often humiliates the woman by saying that she is an unfit mother or that she is mentally ill, hysterical, etc. The humiliation is aimed at destroying the woman’s self-esteem and mental health. The abusive man insults and defames the woman in front of her children and various institutions in order to question her trustworthiness and shift the responsibility for the violence onto the woman.

Exercising total control

By exercising total control, the abusive man gains control over what the woman does; what she thinks; who she sees and also gains control over her body. He achieves this through various prohibitions, by forcing absolute attention from his partner, by outbursts of jealousy, by forcing sex and sexual practices that his partner dislikes, or by constantly criticizing her opinions and/or appearance. Exerting such control destroys a woman’s sense of her own autonomy.

Accusing the partner of violence and justifying violence

The abusive man usually blames the woman for his violent behaviour with statements such as “if you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have hit you”; “if you had taken care of the children, if you had been at home more”; “it’s your fault” and so on. He may also justify his behaviour by saying that he was tired, that he had not had a good day, that he was drunk and did not know what he was doing, and promising his wife that it will not happen again.

Enforcing trivial activities and exhaustion

The abusive man often requires the woman to do certain things in the household at certain times and in a certain way. For example, he may require her to cook, wash and clean at times he specifies and as often as he says. He tells his wife how to do these things. He requires her, for example, to keep the clothes or the dishes in the kitchen arranged in a certain way and in a certain place. In order to achieve this, he threatens the woman with violence. When the woman fails to do this, he punishes her for it. Enforcing trivial activities takes away the woman’s energy and exhausts her. The abusive man may also exhaust the woman by denying her sleep (waking her up several times in the middle of the night or forcing her not to sleep under threat of violence) or food.

Occasional favours

The abusive man does not usually behave violently all the time during the relationship. He alternates violent behaviour with occasional favours – buying her an unexpected gift, flowers, or inviting her to dinner – in order to keep her attached to him. Occasional favours undermine the woman’s psychological resilience because, in a context of denial of normal pleasures and constant fear, it is in these moments that the abusive man ‘indulges’ the woman with something to which she otherwise has no access. The alternation of violence with periods when the man is kind confuses the woman and makes her think that there is hope that the man can change and stop being violent. The man is thus also justifying his violent behaviour. It is targeted behaviour, the aim of which is not to change but to re-attach himself to his partner and thereby reinforce the power and control he has over her. In the overall context of an abusive relationship, the occasional favours from the man should be seen as targeted strategies of his violent behaviour.

Women’s distorted perception of herself and reality

As a result of the application of these patterns of violence, the woman’s perception of both herself and her partner’s violent behaviour is distorted. Manifestations of the distorted self-perception and destruction of the woman’s self-image are, for example, when the woman thinks that she is to blame for the violence; or that her personality and her actions are the reason for the violence; or when the woman considers the man’s restrictive jealousy a proof of love; or when she justifies the man’s violent behaviour by saying that the man drinks alcohol, or is nervous, or has lost his job, etc. In addition to the behavioural strategies of the abusive man, society’s traditional views of the role of women also play a part in these manifestations of women’s distorted self-perceptions.

The abusive man perpetrates violence repeatedly and over a long period of time. Although the forms of violence vary from case to case, violent behaviour has a typical dynamic that is the same in all cases. It is a cyclical alternation of several phases.

Tension building

Tension builds up in the relationship, for example because the woman has a different view of things and expresses disagreement. The abusive man tries to gain power and control over the woman.

Violence/explosion

Tension escalates into violence. The man commits a violent attack (any of the forms of violence, or their combination).

Silence/denial

After the attack, the abusive man denies the violence committed or downplays it. At this stage, the woman is most often silent because she fears further violence or decides to seek help and plans to leave the abusive relationship.

“Honeymoon”

The next phase is the “honeymoon” phase. The man often shows his wife various acts of kindness (gifts, expressions of love and affection) or promises that he will not behave violently anymore, that he will change.

After this phase, tensions begin to build up again in the abusive relationship and the phases are repeated. Both the woman and the children usually feel that violence will occur again. However, they do not know when and how, which causes constant uncertainty and fear on the part of the woman and the children. Over time, the degree and severity of the violent behaviour escalate, the duration and alternation of the phases shortens. In practice, the shortening of the phases means that the time between each explosion of violence becomes shorter. For example, at the beginning of the relationship, the man committed an attack once every six months, but over time the attacks occur regularly once or more times a month, eventually they occur daily. In the cases of violence that occurs very frequently (e.g. daily) and for particularly dangerous forms of violence, very rapid and effective intervention is essential to prevent further, more serious violence or the murder of women and/or children.