Domestic violence Awareness Month is observed during October. Its purpose is to recognize and raise awareness for victims of domestic violence.
One out of every three women and one in four men have gone through a type of physical abuse by a partner. As for children, it is calculated that between 3.3 million and 10 million experience domestic violence every year. In teens 78 percent experience emotional and physiological abuse. This varies from verbal and physical abuse.
Domestic violence is very common in teens Many are scared and uneasy about reaching out to report a domestic situation. They are vulnerable as they are still developing and may be easy to manipulate, and tend to be the more impulsive. People that have gone through domestic violence have a higher chance of being violent in future relationships, which could create a cycle of domestic violence.
Junior Chiara Mena said, “There are probably a lot of people that don’t report their indicents because they might be afraid to attempt to speak about it and seek help.”
When domestic violence is reported it may not always be resolved, and in some cases CPS fails to protect the child. Sometimes victims are told they need to find a different place to stay and find a shelter or put them in different homes which can still negatively affect them.
A very common type of domestic violence is neglect. It is estimated that one in seven kids have experienced child abuse or are neglected, the most common being kids of one year or younger due to them being so vulnerable and unable to defend themselves.
Another type of domestic violence is sexual abuse. 82 percent of sexual abuse victims are under the age of 18. Studies show that 7 percent are usually strangers, 59 percent are acquaintances, and 34 percent are reported to be family members. Yet all of these statistics may be higher due to many unreported cases, from victims who are afraid and uneasy to speak up. Child grooming is also very common in teens which occurs online due to an increase in access to technology. Many teens or children tend to go on online websites or games and can easily be lured into being taken advantage of. This usually occurs due to parents being inattentive or not setting restrictions on the internet access their child may have.
Domestic violence affects all types of people no matter if you’re upper class, lower class, female or male. If domestic violence occurs in a home, whether it’s physically or psychologically, it may cause psychological damage to a child’s brain due to what they would have to endure seeing. If people were verbally abusive to their partner all the time and their children watched, they may tend to receive psychological abuse due to seeing “violent” things all the time. This could have an outcome of either a child growing up and trying to be a different person, or they could end up picking up the negative traits of the parent and being domestically violent to others in the future.
When domestic violence occurs within a home for a child to witness it may cause psychological issues. This can all lead to developing a bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and behavioral issues which may impact a child in daily life and in school. It is important to bring awareness to domestic violence to protect ourselves, the people we love, and our future generations.
