Women’s Abuse in Lithuania Essay Example

To know for sure that a person is abused there are questions to be asked: does another person monitor what you're doing all the time? Does someone unfairly accuses of being unfaithful all the time? Prevents or discourages you from going to work or school, or any other actively? Controls your financial or needed use of medicine? Humiliates In front of others or maybe decides on the things you need or don't need to eat/drink/watch/do?

Threatens you, insults or even hurts you? If a woman or any other person answers to at least a couple of these questions positively - these people are in trouble. They are being violated and abused, and for their own sake, these people should call someone or at least talk to someone about what's happening and get help from the people who care about them or groups, which help the abused people to cope with the stress they've been put through violence conducted from other people - rapists, abusers, stalkers, etc. As it was mentioned before, there are eleven or even more types of violence and buses.

But the main ones are: dating violence, stalking, sexual assault and abuse, and human trafficking. The first one - dating violence - is when a person hurts or abuses someone whom they are dating on purpose.

This type of violence happens to a wide range of women of all races, cultures, Income, social classes and etc. It you are in a relationship with. Most of the time women cannot help themselves, when a man is drunk or Just aggressive and hits them, because women are usually weaker than the physically stronger men.

It

also includes emotional and sexual abuse, which old refer to yelling, name-calling, embarrassing or forcing to do something sexual without her approval - like forcing to have sex or do any sort of sexual interaction without woman's permission. Even if a woman wants to give into having sex with the abuser, but then during the sex, a man starts acting the way she doesn't want him to act - it would be referred to as being abusive in a relationship or companionship.

This sort of violence often starts with an emotional abuse, when woman's partner starts insulting her, calling names and even harassing not Just when they're alone, but also when being in public. Of course, most of the relationships are based on insulting and calling names in a making-fun-of-each-other form, but when a man starts to insult his woman in front of friends, co-workers, or even authority, like her boss, it is simply abusive and a woman should get some help or at least deal with the problem, if not alone, then with someone, who can protect her - help groups, other family members, friends, influential male friends.

Another common type is stalking, which is a constant contact from someone, who makes you feel uncomfortable, afraid or even harassed. Examples of stalking include regular and often calls, emails, text usages, unwanted gifts, showing up at woman's house/school/university or workplace, following or spying on her without her own consent and agreement. Sometimes it can even mean secretly taking pictures of the "beloved" (as the stalker believes) person.

This type of violence and abuse can easily drive a person crazy.

It makes people depressed, out of

control, anxious and can lead to loss of sleep and loss of food consumption. Most of the time stalkers are people with whom a woman was, is or was going to be in a relationship with, or maybe a person with whom she decided not to get involved, but accidentally gave hope before. This sort of thing happens all the time and these stalkers, who are usually very lonely people without any family and friends, who have a lot of time on their hands to stalk every move of the "beloved" person.

These people have this obsession over a person, which is really creepy and disturbing, and normal people would understand it as a psychological disorders, but the stalkers think that they actually love and can't live without that one special person.

It makes them very angry, when the beloved one doesn't appreciate the gifts or the attention and it can even drive these stalkers insane. They can start sing physical abuse or try another very awful and highly used type of women's abuse - human trafficking. It's when a woman is forced or tricked into working with or in terrible conditions.

One of the worst things in this type of assault is that a person can be even kidnapped, lured into another country/region, beaten, starved, locked- up, drugged, raped or made to work for long hours without any rest, food, etc. With this type of abuse, women are usually lured into going to work in another country as a cleaning lady, when they actually are sent to be prostitutes or sold into slavery in other countries.

It even includes the fact that sometimes women

are forced to marry a man and the husband's family starts controlling the woman's life and is put into sexual slavery against her will.

That would be also considered as an assault and violence against her own will. Most of the time, it's fairly young girls, who get lured promising a lot of money or expensive things and amazing life. Because young women are usually quite naive and by trying to escape their unfavorable condition in life (like living with parents and being controlled by them, or not having the same things as their rich friends do) they can be persuaded more easily than any other rowan-up woman, who has a career, family or knows what she wants from her life.

The ones, who lure these girls into this sort of thing are usually nice-looking men or women, who can communicate fairly well and are pleasing to talk with and watch.

They usually make you feel very safe and understood around them, and this is exactly what a young woman needs - to feel safe, understood and having the chance to get what she wants, which in this case is a lot of money, nice things and a better life. But when these nice-looking people earn a woman's trust and she finally agrees to go nowhere, or signs the documents and gives away her personal belongings, like phone, passport, etc. A woman is restricted to contact anyone who can help her, so no friends, family or other people may be called or tested, or emailed without the abusers concern. Most of the time women's passport, birth certificate or any other document, which can ID a

person, is taken away and how these people explain it, is that they need it for safety purposes and legal stuff for making the Job-contracts. Not being able to contact anyone may bring to very bad consequences of becoming depressed, UN-worthy or even suicidal thoughts.

A lot of people who have been victims of human trafficking committed suicide, Just because they couldn't take the pressure and fair of their life and abuse, which they were experiencing.

These women usually cannot get back to their previous life, because they always feel like being watched, stalked or that they'll be taken back to the slavery or being a prostitute. Of course, any sexual relationship after being abducted and human- trafficked, is therefore impossible, because she would always feel as if she's being treated bad and abused, lured into sexual harassment.

In this case, long psychological therapies, even going to psychiatrist or taking anti-anxiety pills are in order, but as this is one of the most terrible types of abuse, it's very hard to recover and get back to the normal life after it. That's why, when a woman is looking for a Job, she should always talk to someone about it (family member, friend, lawyer) and understand every aspect of the promised paycheck, Job opportunity and contracts. That's the main thing a woman can do at this point.

If many people will know about this Job a woman is researching, the least chance she'll be harassed or abused in any kind of way. The last, but not the least, and, in my opinion, one of the most violent abuse against women is sexual assault and abuse -

it's one of the most common abuse types against all of the women in the world, and especially in Lithuania. This category includes any type of sexual activity that a woman does not agree to and even refuses to do, but is forced to. It includes rape, which is very common in Lithuania, especially involving pitiless raping under-aged girls.

There was a huge scandal in Lithuania about Druids Keyed case. In November, 2008, Druids Keyed accused his previous girlfriend, with whom he had a out-of-marriage daughter, and Androids Гњas, who was a politician and a speaker to V. Mantissas, of sexually molesting their daughter. Druids Keyed claimed that A. Гњas was paying his ex- girlfriend to rape their four-year-old (at that time) daughter. This scandal was were found dead, Druids Keyed died of chocking on his own vomit and A.

Гњas, shortly after being accused of child molestation, was found drowned near Saunas reservoir.

Just after four years of close investigation (even after the dead of almost all suspects), Androids AAAS was claimed innocent, but a lot of people still believe that he is the rapist and deserves what he got. It's hard to say why old men like to sexually molest children - they can't even explain it themselves. Rape is unwanted sexual interaction with a person of whom you feel afraid and scared of. It does include the actual sexual intercourse, but also, it may include forcing a girl to penetrate a body part or an object with her mouth, hands or other parts of her body.

This sort of assault can start with someone sending a woman erotic pictures of oneself. It

may seem harmless at first, but then when it becomes more serious - a woman should tell/show someone the pictures or videos and also seek for help, if her request to top is ignored or if it gets even worse. Sometimes, sexual abuse is performed by a stranger, but usually, as in every other type of abuse against women, it's done by a person whom a woman knows very well or was at least acquainted once or twice.

From this horrible type of assault women can have very serious health problems - sexually transmitted infections, ongoing pain, or stomach problems. They can have depression, anxiety and panic attacks, or post-traumatic stress disorder, which can lead to a lot of psychological problems in the present and future.

In worst case scenarios, a woman can become pregnant with an unwanted, rape-caused child from an abuser or even being unable to conceive children for the rest of her life. This fact can really destroy a woman emotionally and psychologically.

It can become hard to live in this world and women can commit suicides or become psychologically impaired. In Lithuania, as the police department of Lithuanian Republic announced, in 2012, there were 18268 registered assault/harassment reports and in 2013 the number raised to 2161 5 reports. The interesting part is that the police department and also he court officials didn't really pay attention to the assault/abuse reports from women and the biggest half of the report were not even agreed to be processed by lawyers.

Which makes us wonder - why do people in Lithuania look at the abuse of women so ignorantly and don't really care about the

consequences, which this ignorance may lead to in the future? If the number of assault reports had raised so rapidly in one year, what will happen in five years from now? If the people who actually assaulted and abused girls and women around Lithuania won't be caught, prosecuted and locked-up in Jails - what will happen next?

There were a lot of surveys and research on this topic, but one of the most accurate one was the survey about "Violence against Women", which was conducted in 1997-1998 and initiated by the Women's Issues Information Centre, and supported financially by the UNDO and UNIFIED.

"The National representative survey of adult women was conducted by the company "Baltic Surveys, Ltd. " on 17-26 November 1997. The random sampling methodology was applied. One thousand and ten women aged between 18-74 years old were interviewed on a one to one basis.

This research aimed to measure the prevalence of violence against women in Lithuania ND it's structure and features in different population groups, to analyze in the family and outside the family, to study relationships between visualization of women in a marital family and their visualization in a parental family, and violent behavior of their fathers and fathers-in-law against their spouses, to study the impact of violence and abuse on women and their reaction to violence, to measure the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual abuse, to study women's concerns with they're personal safety and its relation with experienced violence" (Dry.

Giddier Perseverance, Violence Against Women: Victim Survey Report).

According to the results of this survey research, 63. 3% of adult women in Lithuania experienced abusive relationships and abuse

from men (fathers, friends, strangers, husbands, etc. ). This, of course, indicates that a fairly big percentage of women are being abused every day and they suffer through this without any help of others, which really makes me wonder, how come nobody does anything to prevent these things from happening?

It was indicated, that after being abused, sexually harassed, insulted, or raped, 76% of the women felt really angry, that they couldn't do anything or help themselves in any possible way when this horrible thing happened to them.

56% of the women felt helplessness, because they couldn't do anything to prevent their abusers from violence.

Other feelings, which the abused women felt were experiencing lack of confidence, sadness, depression, dejection, threat, and other feelings, which really don't help them to get back on the normal life track and start living their lives again. What stroke me, as a young woman myself, the most is that majority of the abused and harassed women didn't share their horrible experience tit anyone, or if they did - Just with their closest friends and didn't even bother to report the incident to the law enforcement.

Of course, our police department, court officials and other people don't want to do anything to help these poor women to live in peace, maybe that's why Just low percent of women actually go to the police to report their situation, but there are people, who are really willing to help everyone who has been assaulted or is feeling harassed or abused in one way or another. One of the examples of the companies, which support women and are against the violence and women

abuse - is AVON.

In 955, AVON formed AVON Women's Fund.

The main reason and purpose for this fund is to make life better and easier for women all around the world. This fund's main charity work is put towards curing breast cancer and dealing with abuse against women. This company raised over 40 thousand Lilts for other companies, who help them deal with women's abuse that together they would provide the best help for women, who suffered from sexual or other abuse and having the resources to deal with this major and quite ignorant problem not Just in Lithuania, but all around the world. This company's idea is to share with people one of the main issues in

Lithuania - women's abuse and by talking about it, maybe more people will actually realize that it's a major problem, which can lead to very harsh and bad consequences if not treated or paid attention to. Their idea is also to help people and maybe even some women to realize that they've been in abusive relationships or that they've been harassed, insulted or aggressively dealt with and that this is not okay, that they cannot Just keep silent about their situations and abusive moments in life; that sharing Just with a closest friend isn't enough to stop the abuser for striking next abusers Just walk freely and do what they want?

Just because Lithuanian law enforcement and Court don't want to deal with all of this, it doesn't mean that women should suffer and be put in danger every day of the year, that they should be scared for their lives and families, scared for their

mental and physical health.

There are also other groups and seminars, which talk about this issue in Lithuania and try to prevent and stop abuse and violence against women, such as Association Saunas Women Society or Just regular anti-violence against women seminars/ speeches, that influential people deliver once in a while, to help people get acknowledged with the issue and prevent it from happening in domestic Lithuanian families. Association Saunas Women Society is the most active women society, which helps women, who were violated or abused in any way and it doesn't care about woman's class in society, religion, profession or age.

It's an association, which brings up and connects all the abused women in Lithuania. This group is making a huge effort by collecting the finances and helping the women to cope with their problems and abuse issues. The seminars and speeches, which are delivered by very influential people, such as Art;Rasa Absorbing, Named Subsidiaries IR Daunt Brazening, Nixon Diaries, Vita Sulky, Caulis Restraint, Dali Kittened, Brigit Plainspoken, and Laggards Selfless (who are police officials, social workers, people, who help women to cope with the stress they received during and after the abuse).

These people give speeches once in a while as powering presentations to encourage women to speak out and tell what's bothering them, to tell that they've been abused or hurt by the beloved ones, and to encourage everyone to prevent this kind of issue, and to pass it out to other generations - that our society would be eased without any violence or abuse of women in Lithuania (www.

Strip. Let). To even more emphasize the importance of anti-abuse and anti-violence

in Lithuania, the United Nations declared November 25th as International Violence against women preventing day, which till this day truly commits to its' work and helps all the people in the world remember the issue of abuse and try to prevent it from happening (http://km. Let/wisdom-pro]estate-seminar).

Even though there are a lot of people, who are really involved into these anti- abuse of women societies and really try to help everyone, it's hard for women to actually express their feelings, thoughts, and even information about their abusers, because most of women feel ashamed, guilty and embarrassed about the situation. Women do believe that if they weren't so weak near men, they would've had the chance to protect themselves and they wouldn't be feeling so much guilt, angriness and shame about the situation.

One might say that women are really the weaker sex, because they're scared to tell anyone about their horrible experiences, and decide to hide or not to tell all the information about their situation and keep the guilt, shame, and fear to themselves Just hoping for everything to get better. These women need to understand that if other people won't know what happened and what's going on in their lives, it will be very difficult for someone to help the abused women, because other can't Just guess or figure out by themselves what's happening in that woman's life and how to help her.

There are a lot of free call-lines, such as +37080066366, where women can call and confidential and completely anonymous. This way women will feel more safe and calm by telling all of their problems to someone, because that person who's

working on those help-lines cannot Judge or tell anything if you don't want them to tell.

They're like a free psychologist, who gives immediate help and talks to a woman to calm her down and help her to make an important call to the police, which number is +37052725372 (www. Strip. Let/Let/Kurd-Kristin). The police, as soon as a person makes a phone-call and says that there are abusive acts performed, will come, and stop the violence and link those people to special help groups for more support and help with the PETS and other physiological or psychological issues there might be.

If it's necessary, the police can even call an ambulance for the hurt ones or very strongly injured people through the act of violence from the partner.

Since 2007, the implementation of the National strategy for the reduction of violence against women, which is aimed at national level in a consistent, comprehensive, systematic reduction of violence against women in the family. The priority directions of the strategy are these: the improvement of the legal framework in the field of reduction of violence against women, violence against women in the family condition assay aid to victims of domestic violence, the provision of integrated, effective sanctions perpetrators, prevention of violence against women in the family, strengthening of institutional capacities.

The improvement of the legal framework in the field of for the reduction of violence against women involve these steps: analysis of the applicable laws and other legislation relating to violence against women in the family; set out with their practical problems relating to the application and to offer a solution to these problems and the measures

or to make suggestions for more effective legal protection for victims of domestic violence; family Judges in the proceedings to determine the specialization (specialization of Judges of the family); analysis of the opportunity to opt out of a private complaint, the Institute's practices, lenience in the family in fact, strengthen the protection of victims of domestic violence, extend the time provided for the victims of domestic violence legal aid in accessibility options.

An analysis of the situation of violence against women in the family: to carry out a comprehensive violence against women in the family, the prevalence of domestic violence victims; develop and provide users with statistical information on violence against women in the family;evaluation of the victims of domestic violence services and their quality, to prepare proposals and recommendations on how to improve the comprehensive service.

The provision of assistance to victims of domestic violence of the complex: to ensure that counseling services for victims of domestic violence; to achieve that, the victims of domestic violence are provided with the necessary temporary safe haven. Effects of the perpetrators: to improve the application of alternative measures for the rehabilitation of the perpetrators and their system; the setting up of more organizations working with perpetrators, to get rid of violent behavior, bringing perpetrators self-help groups.

Effective prevention of violence against women in the family: is constantly working on violence prevention, educational work, legal education, the family and human values in the areas of strengthening vaccination intolerance of violence; shape ethical behavior of the representatives of the media, in preparation of qualified professionals to work on the issues of violence against women in the family; improvement of

police officers, other law enforcement agencies and representatives of the institutions of law and order, health protection, which is to take care of the area of violence against women in the family, professional expertise, develop expertise in addressing issues of domestic violence; improve the services to he victim of domestic violence organizations of employees and volunteers to improve the quality of service performance. The strengthening of institutional capacity: to ensure close cooperation between the law enforcement authorities, in all officials of institutions providing social, legal, medical assistance, the coordination of the action of the victim of non-violence against women in the family to improve the work of Mongo in the prevention of violence against women in the family.

In conclusion, it's very important to spread the word about the violence against omen issue in Lithuania and try to prevent it as much as possible, because even if a couple of people won't abuse their women anymore - that's already a big win for the companies, which try to help the abused women and also the country - Lithuania, which suffers from almost the biggest percentage of abusive and violating relationships in European Union. Women's abuse in Lithuania is a major issue, and people need to put all of their effort and combine their sources to help make a difference in our country, because a person never knows, who can be the next victim of the abuser.