Violence against women is considered a global issue and it denies women their most basic human right, their health. The news media have been identified as an important factor in how violence against women is interpreted and perceived by society. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how journalists and editors in Guyana, South America, work with the coverage of violence against women. Furthermore, this thesis examines what policies and views on news value that are prominent on the newspapers and what possibilities journalists and editors experience, to make an impact on society, through their reporting. Eight qualitative in-depth interviews were carried out with editors and reporters on the three most widely spread daily newspapers in Guyana. Also a quantitative content analysis, covering January-April 2014, was performed on the same newspapers. In total 159 articles that reported on cases of violence against women were found and coded. The result indicates that the reporting in Guyana conforms to previous research. The conclusion is that when it comes to context, language and sources used, the newspapers generally fail to work with violence against women adequately. The reporting preserves and reproduces patriarchal power structures by using victim blaming or perpetrator excusing language, not covering it as a social issue and overusing official sources. Furthermore, the result indicates that there are unwritten policies on the newspapers. However, these guidelines are not always followed. The study indicates that the reporting is not given enough resources in terms of time and money, which might be a result of that reporters and editors do not experience that readers are interested enough for the topic to get sufficient resources.

Over the past few years, much debate has been centered on domestic violence, also known as intimate partner violence (IPV), and how it should be handled in our society and criminal justice system. In previous years, domestic violence has been seen not only as a private family matter, but a situation in which no outsiders should intrude. In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control stated that intimate partner violence is a public health problem with 27% of women and nearly 12% of men who have had some sort of experience with sexual or physical violence at the hands of an intimate partner, being stalked, or had violence impacting their lives in some way. Over the past 20 years, many policies have been enacted that attempt to not only hold offenders responsible for their actions, but also to help victims obtain the resources they so desperately need. While it may seem simple to say that police should arrest more and judges should give harsher sentences in an attempt to control domestic violence, they do need effective tools to help them achieve these results. In this paper, I analyze the satisfaction victims of intimate partner violence have with no-drop policies. These policies do not allow victims to drop charges against a perpetrator. Using data from the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), findings indicate that male victims are more likely to be satisfied with the no-drop policy than are female victims. Because victims did not want the criminal justice system response to their victimization to go beyond arrest, future research needs to focus on why victims do not support jailing or therapy for offenders.

Title The awareness about domestic violence among the Czech community Author Jana Trochtová Abstract Presented diploma thesis had for the object the theoretical processing of development of the phenomenon of domestic violence in historical contexts, the identification of variety and classification of domestic violence, the specification of victim and perpetrator of domestic violence and of course the identification of the effects that domestic violence in the family or intimate relationship brings to the victim or the perpetrator. Theoretical part of the thesis deals with the structure of professional organizations in the Czech Republic, the possibilities of the prevention and especially with the therapy of the perpetrator as well. The practical part of this diploma thesis was focused on evaluation of awareness about domestic violence among the Czech community, whereas the main output was the analysis of Czech community's readiness for perpetrator's therapeutic programs and the expression of its own preferences for improving the awareness of discussed issue. The method of questionnaire research was used for data collection. The diploma thesis is supplemented by information obtained from professionals working in specific organization helping people affected by domestic violence.

Economic violence is a relatively unexplored subject even though it is often a part of occuring intimate partner violence. Therefore it is of concern to acknowledge how the swedish social services’ take part in this form of violence in their work. By law the swedish social services’ are the responsible authorities for victims of intimate partner violence to seek help and support. Although according to previous research on the subject, women feel like receiving help from the social services is not always an option for them. Women often feel powerless in meetings with a person of authority. This study aims to gain knowledge of the support given by the social services to women who are survivors of domestic abuse and further focus on economic abuse. There is also an understanding that non profit organizations (NGO’s) are a big contributor to helping survivors of domestic violence even though the law states the responsibility lays on a government body. Responsibility for the victims will therefore be another focus for further understanding of why NGO’s have taken on a helping role in society. A result from qualitative interviews on the subjects, with social workers from seven different municipalities, shows that there is a great variation between how social workers take on this kind of issue. The knowledge and experiences with handling cases of economic abuse vary between the different municipalities. Often the size of a municipality and lack of resources is a significant factor to what kind of help the municipality can offer. Working with and helping women who are survivors of economic abuse is complex. The social services and women shelters both work to help and try to find solutions for the problem.

Main theme of the thesisis a domestic violence issue, specifics of this social-pathologic fact and domestic violence victims needs for expert assistance. Abstract part of the thesis describes domestic violence, its difference from other sorts of aggression. Futher the thesis describes ministerial care if victims, covers clerical marriage issue of married couples who live in separation, eventually nullity of marriage. The last section of the abstract part characterizes charitable care, Diocesan charity České Budějovice and its two projects which focus on help for home violence victims in South Bohemian region. Practical part of thesis examines the charakteristic of the provided services of charitable projects: Centre for women and young Women in nedd EVA and Support centre of crisis help for home violence victims.

Domestic violence has been an urgent problem also in the Czech Republic. The necessity to solve its complexity upon level of the state, not only through non governmental, non-profit-making institutions, is especially expressed by adopting Act No.135/2006 Collection of Laws, by which some acts in scope of domestic violence protection are amended. This Act allows the Police of the Czech Republic to banish an offender committing domestic violence from mutual residence for a period of 10 days and the Act has established a new social service the so called ``Intervention Centre{\crq}q, i.e. a specialized facility that provides help with people who are endangered by domestic violence. The objective was to find out the level of public awareness, knowledge of the Intervention Centres in the Moravia-Silesian and Pilsen Regions. Within the first year of that Act operating, there were the least banished offenders v. s. number of inhabitants, just in the Pilsen Region and there were the most ones in the Moravia-Silesian Region. The theoretical work part describes forms of violence in the family, historical relationship of violent actions with women, possibilities how to prevent them or advised help measures to victims of domestic violence. Further, it is focussed on a legislative solution of that problem area in the Czech Republic and some of European countries or the USA as well. The practical work part involves results of a quantity research that was aimed to discovery of public awareness of the Intervention Centres. The research was performed by method of questioning in a way of a questionnaire. The research was focussed on consciousness of general public relating to domestic violence, whether the research respondents have ever met that phenomenon or what is their opinion on information effectiveness of the problem area. The research demonstrated low awareness of the Intervention Centres of inhabitants in both regions. However, most respondents know what domestic violence is. Nearly one third of interviewees have got certain experience with domestic violence. Majority of respondents consider the information on the Intervention Centres and domestic violence as generally useful. This work may be used to increase public awareness of the Intervention Centres or on the other side to provide the Intervention Centres employees with general public{\crq}s reflection as to availability and activity of the Intervention Centres.

The topic of the thesis is "Criminal Law and Criminological Aspects of Domestic Violence". The phenomenon of domestic violence transpires through the whole society; it is a socially-wide issue which has been present for a long period of time. Initially, domestic violence was considered to be a private problem not to be intervened by the state. However, in last 30 years this attitude has changed and the interception of domestic violence gone through a significant transformation. The society started to recognize this issue as a subject of a public concern which requires also state intervention. The complexity of domestic violence requires interdisciplinary approach. The first part of the thesis provides definition and general description of domestic violence. It describes elements of domestic violence (such as privateness, recurrence, long-term, inequality of the involved parties, escalation, etc.), its kinds and forms, rules and specifics which differentiates domestic violence from other types of violent conduct. Further, it describes causes of domestic violence and theories of causes leading to its occurrence. The end of the first chapter deals with the role of gender in domestic violence. Criminological part of the thesis presents view on the perpetrators and victims of domestic violence and more...

The research objective of this diploma theses is to deeply understand the proces of policy change in the field of prevention and fight against domestic violence in the Czech republic. The aim of the research part of the theses is to identify the main resources and factors of the policy and belief change, which determine the policies in the field of prevention and fight against the domestic violence. This means the orientation among key policy change actors and identification of advocacy coalitions that enforced policy changes. The research design was case study based on the semistructured interviews with experts and key actors. The Advocacy Coalition Framework has proved to be useful in drawing attention to the notion of changing values and belies systems as key source of policy change. It also highlighted the need to take into account factors external to the policy subsystem under investigation. Potential usefulness of the Framework can be found in further application to the field of human rights issues in the Czech republic.

The diploma thesis "Analysis of the current system solutions for domestic violence in the Czech Republic, focusing on the care of children as witnesses" investigates the system of dealing with cases of domestic violence where children are witnesses of such violence. The paper maps processes and work methods with individual family members who are affected by domestic violence, further evaluates the adequacy and effectiveness of these procedures and also the impact of these procedures on individual family members. Individual actors who may have influence on the issue, their relations, cooperation possibilities and their potential in shaping the policy were also examined and evaluated. At last but not least, the thesis investigates communication channels that are available to the involved actors and their effectiveness. The presented thesis is mainly based on studies of available and relevant sources, on information from interviews with personnel of the social and legal children protection institutions and on answers provided by staff of the social and legal children protection organs in the survey. The state pays considerable attention to domestic violence, despite its latency and private character. The origin of the National Action Plan for Prevention of Domestic Violence for 2011-2014 proves its...

Studies have shown that not only are clergy members the first persons from whom battered women seek help, but also a great number of clergy counsel battered women every year (Martin, 1989; Rotunda, Williamson, & Penfold, 2004). The role of the church and clergy are especially critical for the Korean immigrant community in the U.S. because Korean immigrants greatly underutilize existing services and rely heavily on their respective churches for assistance with various issues, including domestic violence (Boodman, 2007; Kim, 1997). Korean churches and clergy members have the potential to be active partners in providing intervention services and to serve as a major force for preventing domestic violence, yet there is no study that directly examines Korean clergy’s responses to domestic violence in their congregations and the factors related to their responses. Recognizing this gap in knowledge, this study was designed to examine how patriarchal, religious, and cultural values of Korean clergy members affect their responses to domestic violence in their congregations. Based on the radical feminist theory and intersectionality theory, it was hypothesized that younger clergy, clergy that have lived longer in the U.S., clergy with more pastoral counseling education, clergy with less religious fundamentalist beliefs, clergy with more egalitarian gender role attitudes, and clergy who do not adhere strongly to Korean cultural values will indicate more behaviors that promote safety of Korean battered women. A cross-sectional survey design utilizing mixed methods was used in this study with data collection through mail and online surveys. The sample was drawn from the Korean Business Directory (The Korea Times Washington D.C., 2010) that includes mailing addresses and phone numbers of 388 Korean American churches in Virginia and Maryland. A total of 152 Korean American ministers participated in this study by completing and returning a self-administered mail survey or accessing a web-based survey, yielding a 40.5% return rate. Results from both quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated that many Korean American clergy are torn between safety of battered women and sacredness of marriage in responding to domestic violence cases in their church. They first try to work toward reconciliation of couples through couples counseling and marriage enrichment seminars, and when this effort is not successful, then they refer to other resources such as domestic violence programs and therapists. Younger Korean American ministers, ministers who have lived in the U.S. longer, and ministers who adhere to Korean cultural values less were more likely to endorse behaviors that promote safety of Korean battered women. Religious fundamentalist beliefs, pastoral counseling education, and gender role attitudes did not account for a significant amount of variance associated with Korean clergy responses to domestic violence. Many Korean American clergy considered themselves as important figures who are best suited to deal with cases of domestic violence in their churches and recognized the need to work and build collaborative relationships with other professionals. Only small number of Korean American clergy felt well prepared to deal with domestic violence cases; however, they are willing to attend training on domestic violence, and many of them stressed the importance of clergy training on domestic violence in ensuring safety of battered women. Implications for social work practice and research are discussed.