Many men claim that men and women are equal or they will say I don’t abuse women and its common to hear them saying we are treated equally but the truth is very different. Many women around the world are victims of domestic violence. Domestic violence is an abusive behavior usually at home that is mostly involving a spouse and a partner. Domestic violence is a serious issue all over the world especially in a country where gender inequality still exists. Women in Ethiopia face high rate of domestic violence because of the cultural beliefs and a lack of resource, so feminist need to focus on changing the law and expanding economic opportunity for women.
Many counties in the world nowadays recognize domestic abuse as a main human right abuse. Ethiopia is one of the country that has a long history and a high rate in women abuse in many forms. The abuse can cause lots of health consequences in the women life and in some case, it can also affect the family that surround the women. Because women are the one who takes all the responsibility in the house the cooking, raising kids, cleaning, fetching water almost everything except for being the source of the income. Mom not being around because of physical or emotional abuse will cause lots of misfunction in the family.
Our writers can help you with any type of essay. For any subject
Order now
Cultural belief is the main reason for domestic violence against women in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia it’s common for man to be dominant in family. In their article Semahegn and Mengistie states women are usually the victims of domestic violence that derives from unequal power relationship between men and women (Semahegn and Mengistie p.2). Mostly Man are the one who provide the family financially and women take the responsibility in the house work and raising kids. This unbalanced resource sharing causes man to be more powerful in the house and in many case to be violent in their relationship. In his book Burns states that For example in Ethiopia where IPV rate is among the world highest (71 percent),79 percent of women interviewed felt wife beating was justified if a woman disobeyed her husband (WHO),2005). (Burn p.28). Many women are expected to keep husband abuse as a secret and if she happens to tell anyone it is considered as disrespect to her husband and might face discrimination from the society and her parents. The discrimination in the society can affect the women psychologically and will make the women to keep the violence as a secret.
Arranged marriage increase the chance of Domestic abuse in women. In arranged marriage women who get in to marriage have zero chance to know her husband; it’s basically parent’s agreement and the man interest in the girl is the main part of this arranged marriage. Not knowing your future husband will limit the women chance of having a good understanding of her spouse. Sometimes the spouses might have some bad behaviors like infidelity, alcohol addiction or drug addiction. In their article Semahegn and Mengistie states Domestic violence links with wide range of reproductive health issue such as sexual transmitted diseases including HIV, miscarriage, risky sexual health behavior (Semahegn and Mengistie p.2). Infidelity can affect the women by lowering her self-esteem that can risk the women to commit suicide. The other risk of infidelity is it will make the women exposed to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS and this woman are mostly unaware if they are affected by this diseased that again can risk their life by lack of medical attention and treatments. This woman not getting the medical attention they need can cause death at early age.
Early marriage is the other reason for domestic violence in Ethiopia. Early marriage is a marriage before the age of 18. According to the article by Erulkar states In regions where child marriage is still common, cultural belief and social norms generally upholds the practice (Erulkar p.6). Girls who get married before the age of 18 usually are victims of domestic violence because usually this girl come from a place with high poverty, low economic development and low education opportunity’s. This girl got merried at early marriage are mostly disadvantageous because they don’t have the skill and the education to decide in the marriage. And the shift from living with parents to form your own family at early age and taking all the commitment and motherhood delays the girls chance of going back to school that indirectly make her a victim of abuse.
Cultural belief also limits women from achieving higher education. A woman with no education has no income that makes her dependent of her husband. This economic dependence can influence her decision making in the family issue and if she happen to disagree with her husband decision she will face domestic violence. The article by BMC women’s health states Beside this cultural obstruction, there seems to be further economic restriction among the poor uneducated women where these restriction makes it difficult for them to start even small scale income-producing work (Lailulo, Sathiya and Blignaut p.7). In many Ethiopian culture when the husband asks his wife parent to marry her its common to ask him if he have income and if he is able to provide for his family and no one will ask about the wife background such as her education and income. What’s expected from the wife to have is her virginity that’s has a big value for a woman to have in Ethiopian culture This stereotype in the society makes the women to be dependent on her husband and to become less confident.
As a tradition, in Ethiopian retaining virginity until marriage is a norm. In rural area of Ethiopian where this norm is displayed boldly that women are expected to stay virgin until marriage. If the woman before marriage claims herself as a virgin and happen not to be virgin she will face lot of discrimination from her parents and abuse from her husband. Mostly this expectation results a physical abuse that can go away after a while but the physiological effect has a huge impact on the women everyday life to be treated as liar, useless and not trustworthy.
In the traditional religious belief man are always dominant and considered to be the head of the house, in the two-main religious group in Ethiopia Christian and Muslim. In both religion women are always taught to be respectful to their husband and to be patient with him or his bad behaviors. Women are responsible for the peace of the family even a woman happen to be a victim of domestic violence the society don’t want the women to go to the law enforcement she is forced to go to religious place get consultancy from the priests or stay home.
The first step to end domestic value start with by making sure everyone in the society have a full understanding of the problem and accept it still exists. Creating the awareness starts from each family to the community. This can be achieved by providing a chance for open discussion in the community that involves victim and men’s who play a greater role in this abusive behavior.
Domestic violence has been a serious issue in Ethiopia for a very long time until this day. The other way we can use to tackle this social issue is by encouraging girls to go school, to achieve higher educated and to become successful in life that indirectly help them become independent, strong and decision maker in their family. Many girls Having the access to education also allow them to discuss about these issue with their teacher or their peers that will be a stress reliefer.
Ethiopia have a very weak system of Law enforcement in protecting women right according to the article by Berhane Limited access to legal service, insensitivity of law enforcement bodies, and the general poor status of women in the society are some of the main reasons that accounted for the continuation of domestic violence despite the better legal and constitutional provision (Berehane p.132). For instance, there is a Movie called Hermila that was made based on true story of a girl. The story is about a girl from Ethiopia who was all over the news one time. Hermela was a victim of domestic violence because she refuses to be a girlfriend to a man. The guy spills acid in her face and make her life go upside down. He totally damages her face and her body that leave her with a serious health issue that takes her life away at the end. What was very sad is that the guy who commit this physical abuse was raised after a few years of jail time. What every woman learn from this incidence is that how the low enforcement is weak in taking a serious action and they have no chance to choose the person they want to leave with. It leaves every girl with a fear of going through the same situation that Hermela has to deal with.
Women in Ethiopia face high rate of domestic violence because of the cultural beliefs and a lack of resource, so feminist need to focus on changing the law and expanding economic opportunity for women. This domestic violence caused by for several factors such as early marriage, arranged marriage, religious views, traditional norms ,lack of resources and opportunities. The key to overcome this social issue that feminist need to work on is by providing a chance to have open discussion in the community. The other solution is encouraging women to achieve higher education and become independent and become income generator in their family and to strength the law enforcement system in giving justice to the victims that will give a good lesson for others. By doing so Ethiopia can overcome the violence against women and encourage other countries to be part of the movement.
Homelessness Cannot Be Solved Overnight
Homelessness is a very difficult subject to talk about for many people. A lot of people know someone who is either currently homeless or has been homeless before and is no longer homeless, so this topic may really hit home for them. Other people may not have direct experiences with homeless people unless they see them in public. It can be very difficult to know how to act when you see a homeless person in public that you have never met before. Countless thoughts can go through your mind when you discover that someone or a group of people that you just crossed paths with is homeless. It is generally not very often that you meet someone who has evidently fallen on such hard times. There is a wide range of emotions that one can feel when they have such an experience. You may possibly feel a sense a relief due to the fact that you are not in the position that this homeless person. You could also be disappointed at the fact that homelessness has not been solved and that there are still people around you helplessly lying on the streets wishing that they could have a better life.
No matter how much we all want to completely solve the issue of homelessness this very minute, we all have to accept this harsh reality. Homelessness cannot be solved overnight. There is no possible way that homelessness can be solved without the efforts of people who are willing to take several steps in order to effectively solve the issue. It usually takes days, weeks, months, years, or even decades to solve issues as major and widespread as homelessness. One of the first steps that people can take in order to eliminate homelessness is to find out how big of a problem homelessness is in the regions that are closest to them and consider what kind of solutions can be made to solve these issues. For this paper, I will be focusing on the issues related to homelessness in Fort Wayne, Allen County, and in Northern Indiana as a whole. There are several statistics which show that homelessness is a problem in our region.
Our writers can help you with any type of essay. For any subject
Order now
Based on a 2015 study, there were a few common demographics of homeless people in Allen County. There were 848 homeless people who were unemployed, 460 homeless people who were disabled, 287 homeless people with no transportation, 126 homeless people with a criminal record, 114 homeless women who were pregnant, 113 homeless people who reported having mental health issues, 93 homeless veterans, and 59 homeless people who reported having addiction problems in their household when they still lived in a home (Report to the Community: The State of Homelessness in Fort Wayne 9). It was also shown that 791 FWCS students from pre-K all the way up to 12th grade were identified as homeless in 2015, with nearly a third of them being in grades K-2 (Report to the Community: The State of Homelessness in Fort Wayne 23).
Another set of statistics related to homelessness in Allen County was released in 2017, and it revealed that 498 households were looking for shelter, 319 children were reported to be homeless, 30 individuals reported they were veterans, 48 individuals reported having a diagnosed mental health issue, 35 homeless women were pregnant, and 58 individuals were ex-offenders (Homeless Data for Allen County January-May 2017). Along with this, it was shown that 51% of the homeless people in Allen County reported to be homeless for the first time and that 28% of the homeless people in Allen County refused referrals to local homeless shelters (Homeless Data for Allen County January-May 2017). Lastly, an article posted by the South Bend Tribune in 2017 showed that the number of homeless students was rising in Northern Indiana and that there were more than 230 homeless students in St. Joseph County along with more than 350 homeless students in Elkhart County (Dits and South Bend Tribune). It is evident from these statistics that there are many people in this part of Indiana who are currently being impacted by homelessness. It is particularly alarming to hear about the large number of children who are homeless. There are thousands of them who are spending the part of their lives that they are supposed to enjoy the most not knowing where their next meal will come from or where they will sleep at night. While homelessness cannot be solved overnight, it is clear that the people who are not homeless need to find as many ways as possible to aid homeless people.
To further research homelessness in our region, I went to the downtown library in Fort Wayne with my mom on a Saturday morning to see how many homeless people we could find in there. My mom had previously told me that she had a lot of homeless people in Fort Wayne sleep under bridges downtown by the library at night, and then they spend all day in the library until it closes. She also told me that there were several programs in Fort Wayne that take in homeless people, including Charis House, Fort Wayne Rescue Mission, Victory House, and Vincent Village. With that being said, we went to the library to see what was taking place there. These are a few observations that I made while I was there.
There was a lot of homeless people in the library who were on computers. We even saw one person in particular who was simply watching basketball on YouTube. This alone can show how some homeless people can do things like this so that they can feel like they are a part of the world and society. It can also briefly distract them from the fact that they are homeless and that life has become really difficult for them. Another thing that I noticed when I was at the library was that the majority of homeless people in the library were adult men and that not as many homeless women and children were in there. I also noticed that it was relatively easy to tell from the clothes that some people were wearing and the condition that they appeared to be in that they were most likely homeless. My mom and I were both wearing coats in the library that we had gotten recently, while most of the people in the library were not wearing clothes that were as clean and new as ours.
We also walked past a man who was sleeping at one of the tables in the library. He would eventually wake up and start looking at his phone. It seemed clear that he was probably homeless because somebody who has a home would probably not go to the library on a Saturday morning at 10:00 A.M. just so they could sleep at one of the tables. It does not at all seem like something that a non-homeless person would logically do. As we were on our way home from the library, we saw a couple of people hanging out near the downtown art museum. It seemed like they might be waiting to get a bed from the Fort Wayne Rescue Mission. About a week later, we drove by the Rescue Mission at around 7:00 P.M. to see how many people were in there, and there were several people in there who were seeking some kind of assistance. It is pretty clear to me that there is an issue related to homelessness in Fort Wayne that does not get enough attention given how easy it really can be to cross paths with a homeless person if you make a lot of key observations.
Based on the primary and secondary research that I have conducted, I have come to the conclusion that homelessness cannot simply be solved immediately because of the fact that there are thousands of people in our region alone who are homeless. In order to ensure that the vast majority of these people find a way to get a home, many things will have to be done. First, people will need to try to eliminate any prejudices that they have towards homeless people and be more willing to help them rather than discriminate against them. It will also be important to forget about any common stereotypes that are portrayed about homeless people and to try to understand them as the unique individuals that they are truly are, since every homeless person and their story behind becoming homeless is different. Through social change, it can be easier for people to support homeless people and make the road to finding them a stable home for good much clearer than before. It may be difficult at first, but it is definitely possible. Ultimately, homelessness cannot be solved unless there is a collective effort made by a large number of people to prevent people from becoming homeless.
Works Cited
Dits, Joseph, and South Bend Tribune. Number of Homeless Students Rises in Northern Indiana. South Bend Tribune, 4 Dec. 2017.
Homeless Data for Allen County January-May 2017. 2017. PDF file.
Report to the Community: The State of Homelessness in Fort Wayne. 2017. PDF file.
