INTRODUCTION

Domestic abuse used to be seen as essentially a private matter. Now it is recognised as a major human rights issue. This book will explore the significance of this shift in language. It will examine the significance of human rights analysis for defining domestic abuse and formulating powerful legal responses to it. It will also argued that the language of rights unlocks some important legal tools and insights which are necessary in ensuring that an effective legal response is found.

In this chapter the general themes of this book will be introduced. At the start, a brief overview of the history of the law's response to domestic violence will be given and then the contemporary understanding of domestic abuse will be considered. The focus will then shift to the influences that have caused the increasing significance of human rights responses: feminism, challenges to the public/private divide and the increasing use of rights language.

TERMINOLOGY

Those with any familiarity with this subject will realise that the terminology used is controversial and one can tell much about a person‘s perspective from the language they use. The term ‘domestic violence’ ofter indicates a desire to restrict the discussion to physical acts and a fear that otherwise the concept will become inappropriately broad. By contrast, the term ‘domestic abuse’ indicates a wish to emphasise that acts which do not involve a physical assault, such as emotional and financial abuse, should be included. The term ‘violence against women’ indicates that domestic abuse should be considered as a specifically gendered crime – something men do to women – and that it should be considered within a broader picture of violence against women, such as sexual assault and sexual harassment. By contrast, ‘intimate partner abuse’ is ofter used by those who want to emphasise that abuse can take place between people of either gender and is not restricted to couples living together. These themes will be explored in more detail in Chapter 2, but as this brief summary shows, much can ride on the terminology used. The reality is that no single term can capture all the complexities surrounding this phenomena. There are elements of truth in all of the above points.