What is Domestic Violence?

Domestic violence includes the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control over another person.

Domestic violence occurs when such abuse is perpetrated by a past or current intimate partner, a family member, a caretaker, or roommate.

Domestic violence occurs in all communities and has nothing to do with sex or physical appearance. An abuser can be masculine or feminine, large or small, tall or short. There is no blanket description of an abuser.

Domestic violence can be broken down into 8 types. Various tactics and dynamics are used to establish and maintain the power and control over the other person.

Domestic Violence Types

Physical

Hurting or attempting to hurt someone by punching, kicking, slapping, hitting, biting, pinching, burning, strangling, grabbing, choking, or shoving them. Physical abuse also includes actions such as throwing things, banging doors, or punching walls.

Stalking

A pattern of behavior intended to harass, annoy, frighten, or harm the person. Stalking can involve behaviors such as phoning the person repeatedly, mailing them letters or gifts, following them as they go about their day, or finding ways to spy on them while they’re at home or work.

Human Trafficking

Forcing an intimate partner, family member, roommate, or person you are caring for to engage in commercial sexual acts

Sexual

Forcing someone to participate in a sex act without their explicit consent. Sexual abuse also includes any sexual contact between an adult and a partner who is below the age of 18.

Financial Abuse

Maintaining control over joint finances, withholding access to money, tracking the person’s spending, or stealing from another person as a way to maintain control over them. Financial abuse also includes preventing a person from working, studying, or taking other steps to become financially independent.

Psychological

Terrorizing the person, playing mind games with them, or threatening to harm them or their loved ones.

Verbal / Emotional

Undermining the person’s self-worth by criticizing them constantly, gaslighting them, calling them names, isolating them from their family and friends, monitoring their activities, and trying to prevent them from working or doing things they enjoy.

Manipulation

Manipulation can occur in the form of coercion and threats, intimidation, using the children, and minimizing, denying, and blaming the abuse on the victim