Emotional abuse: Most common type of domestic violence

Veronica Pulumbarit, GMA News
March 10, 2012

The Pinoy Abroad section of GMA News Online is running a series of articles on gender-based violence to help empower women and enlighten men. We now turn our attention to EMOTIONAL ABUSE, the most common type of domestic violence.

Angela’s husband has never hit her. Still, she lives in fear of him as he constantly ridicules and scolds her for every little mistake she makes.

According to the United States-based magazine “Psychology Today,” one of the worst things that can happen to a person is to live with an emotional abuser.

Psychological or emotional abuse is the most common type of violence experienced by women and children and is deemed by many as the “worst kind of abuse,” the New Zealand-based non-profit group Women’s Refuge said.

The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993)
defines violence against women as any act that results in “physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women.”

Specifically, the UN defines domestic violence as a violent act perpetrated by intimate
partners through:
physical abuse (such as slapping, beating, arm twisting, stabbing, strangling, burning, choking, kicking, threats with an object or weapon, murder, genital mutilation, and others);
sexual abuse (such as coerced sex, intimidation or physical force, forcing unwanted sexual acts or forcing sex with others);
psychological abuse (includes intimidation, persecution, threats of abandonment or abuse, confinement to the home, surveillance, threats to take away custody of the children, destruction of objects, isolation, verbal aggression, and constant humiliation), and
economic abuse (includes denial of funds, refusal to contribute financially, denial of food and basic needs, and controlling access to health care, employment, etc.)

Read full article @ www.gmanetwork.com