Did you know or did you not know?

Nova Vita Domestic Violence Prevention Service (2001) defines women abuse as “any verbal threat or physical force used to create fear and controls what a woman does”. Abuse can also come in three types – physical, psychological and sexual. Severe abuses towards a woman lead to violence. As mentioned earlier, researches from WAO showed that domestic violence still remained as the most reported cases in Malaysia and it had always been on the increase. Therefore, we have decided to focus our campaign on issues regarding domestic violence.


Domestic Violence (or even intimate partner violence) is defined as “when one partner usually a boyfriend or husband attempts to control and dominate the other, usually a girlfriend or wife through violence, threat of violence, or by controlling the couple's finances and social life” (WAO, 2000). Again, it comes in three forms – psychological, physical and sexual. And according to National Coalition of Domestic Violence, 1 in every 4 women would experience it in her lifetime (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000).