This booklet contains information about family violence and abuse. It also contains suggestions about how to get help.
Family violence happens in all kinds of families, in all communities. It happens to Canadians and non-Canadians. It happens to people who are young and old. It happens between intimate partners and between parents and children. It may be happening to you.
Family should be a safe place. Family members should treat each other with respect and dignity, regardless of age or gender. Family violence or abuse is not acceptable.Â
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Intimate partner violence (IPV) transcends age; yet, abuse is often thought of as age-specific, with an emphasis on women who are younger or of childbearing age. When this happens, the violence experienced by women who are older is rendered invisible and their voices are silenced.
Contributing to this problem are the inconsistent definitions used by researchers, which may leave out women who consider themselves as older but are not recognized as such. In this newsletter, we build upon research inclusive of a variety of ages in order to reflect a wider range of women's experiences.
While focused on women who are older, we recognize that the experiences of these women may be shaped by oppressions beyond those associated with age and gender (e.g. oppressions related to indigeneity, poverty, disability, immigra on status, sexual orientation).
This report proposes that there are currently three dominant theoretical frameworks used by researchers for understanding neglect, abuse and violence against older women.
These are:
1. Older adult mistreatment, informed by social gerontology and using a definition proposed in the Toronto Declaration on Elder Mistreatment (World Health Organization (WHO), 2002);
2. Older adult protection, informed by geriatrics and using a definition that was formalized by the National Research Council (NRC) (National Research Council, 2003); and
3, Intimate partner violence, informed by the domestic violence movement and adapting a definition originally formulated by the United States of America Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (Saltzman and others, 2002).
Quels obstacles les femmes plus âgées doivent-elles surmonter lorsqu'elles tentent d'utiliser les services et d'obtenir des soutiens?
Les participantes à l'étude « Vieillir sans violence » ont indiqué pourquoi elles croient que les femmes plus âgées victimes de violence n'utilisent pas les services :
• Elles croient qu'il s'agit d'une question personnelle (34 %)
• Elles croient qu'il n'y a aucune raison d'obtenir de l'aide (durée des mauvais traitements) (31 %)
• Elles ne connaissent pas les services o erts (19 %)
• Elles ne pensent pas que l'organisme soutient leur groupe d'âge (8 %)1
What barriers do older women experience when accessing services and supports?
Aging Without Violence research participants reported on why they believe older women experiencing violence do not access services:
• Believes it is a personal matter (34%)
• Feels there is no purpose in getting help (length of abuse) (31%)
• She is not aware of the available services (19%)
• She doesn't think your organization supports her age group (8%)
Domestic abuse is a complex, wide reaching and largely hidden phenomenon. Each year, around 2.1 million people suffer from domestic abuse in England and Wales. 1.4 million women (8.5% of the population) and 700,000 men (4.5% of the population). Crucially, 85% of victims made five attempts on average to get support from professionals in the year before they accessed effective help to stop the abuse.
Whilst the impact of domestic abuse is grave on all victims, certain groups experience additional challenges and barriers. Many surveys and studies, such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales, have excluded consideration for victims aged 60 plus, and awareness raising campaigns have consistently focused on younger victims and perpetrators. This serves to reinforce the false assumption that abuse ceases to exist beyond a certain age. The limited pool of research which does exist on domestic abuse and older people suggests that "older women's experiences of domestic abuse are markedly different from those in younger age groups and that these differences have not been adequately acknowledged or accounted for".
Introduction
Understanding the prevalence and psychologic sequelae of interpersonal violence in older women is increasingly important, with the number and proportion of the older adult population in industrialized countries rapidly increasing and with women aged 65 a fast-growing segment. In particular, in the United States, the advancing age of the Baby Boomer generation is projected to more than double the number of older women in the next 40 years. Because of the political, legal, and economic circumstances in which the current cohort of older women came of age, some may have histories of interpersonal trauma but not recognize deleterious effects or disclose these experiences to healthcare providers
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant violation of human rights with profound consequences for health and well-being that affect individuals of all genders across the life course.
In fact, IPV is associated with 8 out of 10 leading health indicators; namely, smoking, high risk alcohol use, injuries and homicide, mental health problems, risky sexual behaviour and sexuallytransmitted infections, access to health care (e.g. increased risk of late entry into prenatal care), immunizations (e.g. children of abused women are less likely to get immunizations), and obesity or weight gain (U.S. Department of Health and Social Services, 2011). Further, groups who generally experience pronounced health disparities relative to the general Canadian population (e.g. Indigenous peoples, low socioeconomic status groups, persons with disabilities), are also at a significantly greater risk of IPV. Accordingly, violence is impacted by and influences many social determinants of health beyond its direct adverse impact on health itself.