Психология и социология/12. Социальная психология

Kosichenko I.F., Grigorieva G.B.

South-Russia State University of Economics and Services, Russia

Cruel treatment of women as a social problem

Violence is an integral part of life throughout the development of human community. Today, various forms of its manifestations can be found all over the world. Each year more than half a million people in the world die from violence, and many more get injured without latent outcome as a result of the collective / interpersonal conflicts. Violence is one of the major causes of death of people aged from 15 to 44 in the world.

To get an accurate assessment of damage that violence causes is rather difficult, but it is still obvious that the losses to the economy reflected in lost working days, in payments for law enforcement bodies and in unrealized investment are rather substantial. It is even more difficult to measure grief / suffering of the people who are victims of violence [4, p.25-31].

Physical violence is a socially dangerous wrongful effect on the body by another person, made against their will. It can be made with strikes, beating, injuries and other effects on the integument of a human body by means of physical force, weapons and firearms or other items, liquids, substances, etc., as well as the effect on internal human organs without damaging outer tissues of a body (e.g., by poisoning). Criminal acts of violence vary in size of physical harm caused to a victim.

The law defines mental abuse as a “threat of violence”. Under a threat of violence we understand intimidation, bullying with physical violence. This means of the effect on the mind, aimed at forcing a victim to submit to criminal standards. The threat is most often expressed in creating the impression of inevitable massacre by certain verbal statements, gestures, display of weapons or other objects [6, p.31-32].

The problem of domestic violence is global. Family members become victims of aggression more often than strangers. This applies both to small excess causing minor personal injuries or more serious crimes, including murder. A substantial part of aggression, existing in society, is directed at family, and it is observed in almost all countries, which gives grounds to speak about the universality of this phenomenon. According to the World Tribunal data on violations of women’s rights represented at the UN World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna (1993), 54% of all murders are committed within the family, and in 90% of these crimes the victims are women and children.

The problem of domestic violence in Russia gained a special significance in the last fifteen years, which are characterized by radical socio-political and economic transformation. A complete change of the vector of ideological motivating factors of beliefs, values, motivations, hopes, relationships determined the change in the perception of conflict behavior patterns in a family. As a result, despite the different nature and complexity of interpretation of the phenomenon of domestic violence, a common trend of increasing all-round condemnation of any quality of its manifestations is being observed [4, p.31-41].

The first studies of the problem were done in the U.S. in the middle of the XIX century. At that time American women overreacted to crimes against women. They supported victims of violence. The women's movement in San Diego organized a shelter for battered women, the religious women's group founded a commune in Texas for battered wives and wives of alcoholics, Chicago feminists helped victims of incest, rape and beatings. Activists contributed to the adoption of more stringent state law to rapists and perpetrators of incest and demanded compensation for the women murdered. Liberal feminists often referred to the analogy of slavery in the discussion of crimes against women. Limited in personal freedom a wife was submitted to the power of the owner, whose orders forced her to obey. They compared marriage with slavery. But their interest was concerned not only married women, but women in general [1, p.94-95].

The leading factor in the spread of cruelty of family members are socio-cultural settings, i.e. understanding of to what extent violence is acceptable in the culture of the society, for example, the opinion shared by the Russian public on the legality of corporal punishment of children as legitimate and the only right way to raise children. Another view shared by the society which lowers the sensitivity in response to family violence is the point of view that the way parents treat their children, the relationship of spouses is a private family matter, and state interference in the private sphere is not only welcome, but ruins foundations of a family.

Family violence is defined as behavior with the intent to inflict pain / injury to a family member or co-resident person and has a characteristic feature – it is regular, sometimes constant, for long periods of time.

In Russia as in Western social practices, domestic violence was an allowable phenomenon in all layers of society.

The situation is starting to change under the influence of radical socio-political and economic transformation in the period 1980-1990s.

The analysis of international legal papers allows us to consider domestic violence as an unacceptable act and a violation of human rights requiring state interference in accordance with the settings accepted by the international community. In accordance with the further development of the concept of protection of the women and children’s rights, the problem of domestic violence has started to develop. It is due to the focusing on the problem of violence against women that the international law has started to develop the idea of control over family cruelty of all family members. It was determined that domestic violence should be regarded as a violation of international human rights.

Accordingly the understanding of responsibility of countries for violence in the family has changed. If previously it was thought that the state is responsible only for actions of their governments, but not for actions of individuals, and even more in a family, nowadays they apply the principle of complicity: a systematic prevention or suppression by the state of human rights violations, including those in the private sphere. The adoption of this trend imposes on the State the responsibility not only to its own citizens, but also to the international community and the law.

Nowadays the Committee on Women, Family and Children operates in the State Duma, and the Public Commission to ensure equal rights and opportunities for men and women in Russia operates under the Chairman of the Federation Council. Such actions at the federal level have become possible only under the influence of a new women's movement formed in the country in 1990s which publicly opposes discrimination. A characteristic feature of the Russian women's movement is its paucity [4, p.35-40].

The existence of violence in society has serious consequences. The model of human relations, based on violence, repression, the full power of one person over the life of another one is a reproducible model of relations and behavior that is why children who grow up in families where violence occurs often become victims or perpetrators of violence in their adult lives. The use of criminal-legal methods only in order to deal with violence in a family can not prevent recurrence, ensure the social rehabilitation and re-adaptation of victims of domestic violence and help the perpetrators of violence in the formation of a new, constructive behavioral model. That is why this problem was included in the activities of social service agencies.

In 1998 the Chelyabinsk Regional Centre for Social Protection “Family” decided to start working on these problems. The studies made resulted in the following data:

• 36% of respondents acknowledged that they faced domestic violence;

• 58% of respondents reported about one or more types of violence they know;

• 57% of respondents indicated that they were subjected to psychological violence;

• 24% of respondents indicated that they had been physically abused;

• 3% of the respondents indicated that they were subjected to sexual violence in the family, a small percentage in this case is connected with the existing social prejudices regarding sexual relations within the family;

• 4% of the respondents acknowledged that their children were subjected to abuse [5, p.31-36].

A social danger of family aggression lies not only in criminal consequences - injury or death to a person. A violent crime destroys the family as the basic unit of the society, causing a tremendous damage to morals, has a stressful and demoralizing impact on children [2, p.112-120].

Preventing murders involving violent sexual offenses is characterized by high difficulty (70% of questioned law enforcement officers agreed to the statement). It is primarily due to the fact that subjective reasons for committing these murders were purely intimate, hidden, related to interpersonal relationships, the inner content and meaning of which are not always obvious. This may explain the fact that people convicted of such murders can rarely explain what they had committed.

The given data show that preventive work in this direction should be started in a primary school and at as early age as possible. At this stage it is necessary to coordinate activities of parents, teachers, psychologists, social workers, law enforcement officials and other persons.

Antisocial homicidal tendency of those persons, who can also commit sexual crimes, is essentially a complex of such negative qualities as low culture, problems of intellectual development, the narrowness of outlook and interests, their deformation and simplification, primitive needs, attitudes and desires, lack of moral ideals. Consequently, as a means of prevention of sexual homicide should call the raise of cultural standards, morals, value orientations, both of an individual and society [3, p.20].

Beyond any doubt the use of mass media and sex education can contribute to the moral level of culture in accordance with the given type of murder.

The media as a means of prevention are to form the moral conscience based on universal values. Unfortunately, nowadays cruelty, violence, sex are being widely demonstrated in the media in Russia (including television, Internet, etc.). Undoubtedly, the distribution of pornographic materials in the media often serves as a catalyst for a series of sexual crimes, which contributes to the decline of morality.

The correctional rehabilitation of sex criminals in prison has a deterrent value. It is necessary to provide psychiatric and sexual-pathological assistance, including removal of internal conflicts and feelings, establishing relations with people around. Unfortunately, such assistance is either not provided or is ineffective.

The preventative effect on homicide involving violent sexual crimes has both social and special preventive measures. They are aimed more at prevention of mass deviations in sexual behavior. The total implementation of all these measures will give the hope to recover our society, the decline in sex crimes, including those with homicide [7, p.83-87].

Literature:

1. Lotnikova, L.A. Violence against women as a phenomenon of the social assessment / L.A. Lotnikova / Humanitarian and Social - Econ. Sciences. - 2001. - № 1.

2. Mishota, V.A. Marital trouble as a criminological problem [Text] / V.A. Mishota// Vestnik RGGU. - 2008. - № 5.

3. Nadtoka, S.V. Victim aspects of prevention of sexual homicide // Serial murders and their prevention: legal and psychological aspects: Proceedings of the international scientific-practical conference. Rostov - on - Don, 1998. Part 1.

4. Rodina, I.V/ Social problems of domestic violence in modern Russia [Text] / I.V. Rodina / Journ. Soc. work. - 2008. - № 2.

5. Serova, E.A. Depertment on Women and children suffered from domestic violence - an important division of the Center for Social Protection / E.A. Serova, M.S. Galyan // Social service worker. - 2003. - № 3.

6. Shakina V. What we mean by domestic violence? [Text] / V. Shakina, V. Shakin// Questions of Soc. support. - 2006. - № 20 (October).

7. Stetyukha, M.P. Preventing murders associated with violent sexual crimes [text] / M.P. Stetyukha// North-Cauc. Legal vestnik. – 2007. - №3.