Domestic Violence Against Women in Rural Communities in Poland

Abstract

Domestic violence is a difficult topic to research and to write about. It is assumed that we know about only a small part of the violent behavior that occurs, because the victims of violence often decide to conceal the experience. From the statistics we have, we nevertheless know that the scale of the problem is serious. In addition, it seems to be a contentious ideological and political issue; in Poland there has been resistance by some groups to ratifying the Istanbul Convention. Experience in other countries and the idiosyncrasies of rural communities in Poland suggest that it might be even more difficult to analyze the problem of domestic violence in rural families. The very small number of studies and publications on this topic seems to prove the hypothesis. The goal of this article is first to present definitions of domestic violence, the scale of the problem, and the steps taken to prevent violence in rural areas in Western countries, and then to present research into violence in rural areas in Poland.