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The IUP Journal of Law Review

Fighting Against Domestic Violence: The Cases of Ghana and China

Article Details

Pub. Date	: Jan 2022
Product Name	: The IUP Journal of Law Review
Product Type	: Article
Product Code	: IJLR30122
Author Name	: Emmanuel Mensah Aboagye, Kwaku Obeng Effah, and Rosemary Achiaa Asamoah
Availability	: YES
Subject/Domain	: Arts & Humanities
Download Format	: PDF Format
No. of Pages	: 10

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Abstract

Domestic violence is a severe human rights predicament that transcends cultural, economic, social and religious ranks. It affects human dignity and health, and has long-term socioeconomic consequences. This paper examines domestic violence issues from the Ghanaian and Chinese perspectives, while highlighting the relationship between domestic violence and human rights. Ghana's government has enacted the Domestic Violence Act 732 (2007) to help fight this menace, while China has enacted the 2016 anti-domestic violence law. This was purposely enacted to protect the victims through full legal measures, while specifically ensuring protection orders and a written notice method that warrants early mediation from employers, government officials, social workers, and law enforcement authorities. This paper unravels the numerous factors behind domestic violence and recommends that China and Ghana should effectively fight against domestic violence by adopting an efficient approach to expose the menace of domestic violence.

Introduction

From time immemorial, domestic violence has been a problem that has drawn the attention of national and international communities. Women are more vulnerable to domestic violence (Sokoloff and Dupont, 2005). The international community, especially the United Nations, has adopted many measures to fight against this problem. It adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW), demonstrating the increasing global understanding of violence against women and the violation of women's human rights. DEVAW upholds that violence against women curtails women's fundamental human rights and freedoms and invalidates their satisfaction with these rights and freedoms (Qureshi, 2013).

In the same vein, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) believes that domestic violence is directed against women because they are women and the society sees them as vulnerable (Osei-Tutu, 2017). It results in physical and sexual harm (Sokoloff and Dupont, 2005). According to Oyediran