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This article focusses on violence against women in a domestic situation.
Safety and security don't just happen: they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children - the most vulnerable citizens in any society - a life free from violence and fear. In order to ensure this, we must become tireless in our efforts not only to attain peace, justice and prosperity for countries, but also for communities and members of the same family. We must address the roots of violence.
Nelson Mandela1
Introduction
It is now 30 years since domestic violence first began to emerge as a significant issue. Initially efforts focused on ensuring safety for women and children fleeing violent partners.
Over the years, this focus has broadened to include the serious effects of domestic violence on children, what can be done to assist perpetrators of abuse, and the needs of those affected by abuse in all areas including social services, housing, legal and most recently, health services.
While an anormous amount of work has been done to improve the safety of women and children in our community, there is now a heightened concern about the many aspects of interpersonal violence that have an impact on the basic human right to live a life free of violence and abuse, with recent data indicating violence against women remains a substantial problem within our community.2
A role for nurses
Nurses are a large group of service providers who have a central ethic of caring and an agenda of early intervention and health promotion in their work to improve the health status of communities.
As a group of health workers, nurses traditionally have been reluctant to consider domestic violence as a health issue, preferring instead to consider it to be the domain of social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists. Nurses have also been reluctant to embrace this issue in hospital settings.
Despite this, nurses have an important role to play in their work in hospital and community settings, to assist women (and their children) who are the victims of abuse/violence in a domestic situation.
Evidence shows the effects of abuse/violence have a profound impact on women's and children's health, and that women regularly seek services from health care workers, including nurses,...