Types of abuse of adults

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Domestic violence

Domestic violence refers to the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of a spouse or domestic partner (regardless of gender). Early research into the problem of wife battering focused on middle-class couples, but it has since been recognised that spouse abuse occurs among wealthy professional couples as well. In addition, studies done in the late 1980s and 1990s indicate that domestic violence also occurs among gay and lesbian couples. It is estimated that four million women in the United States are involved in abusive marriages or relationships; moreover, most female murder victims are killed by their spouse or partner rather than by strangers.

Domestic violence illustrates the tendency of abusive people to attack anyone they perceive as vulnerable; most men who batter women also abuse their children; some battered women abuse their children; and abusive humans are frequently cruel to animals.

Elder abuse

Elder abuse has become a subject of national concern in the last two decades. As older adults are living longer, many become dependent for years on adult caregivers, who may be either their own adult children or nursing home personnel. Care of the elderly can be extremely stressful, especially if the older adult is suffering from dementia. Elder abuse may include physical hitting or slapping; withholding their food or medications; tying them to their chair or bed; neglecting to bathe them or help them to the toilet; taking their personal possessions, including money or property; and restricting or cutting off their contacts with friends and relatives.

Abusive professional relationships

Adults can also be abused by sexually exploitative doctors, therapists, clergy, and other helping professionals. Although instances of this type of abuse were dismissed prior to the 1980s as consensual participation in sexual activity, most professionals now recognize that these cases actually reflect the practitioner’s abuse of social and educational power. About 85% of sexual abuse cases in the professions involve male practitioners and female clients; another 12% involve male practitioners and male clients; and the remaining 3% involve female practitioners and either male or female clients. The victims of many of these abusive relationships are men and women who sought professional help in order to deal with the effects of childhood abuse.

Workplace bullying

Workplace bullying is, like stalking, increasingly recognized as interpersonal abuse. It should not be confused with sexual harassment or racial discrimination. Workplace bullying refers to verbal abuse of other workers, interfering with their work, withholding the equipment or other resources they need to do their job, or invading their personal space, including touching them in a controlling manner. Half of all workplace bullies are women, and the majority (81%) are bosses or supervisors.

Stalking

Stalking is the repeated pursuit or surveillance of another person by physical or electronic means. Many cases of stalking are extensions of domestic violence, in that the stalker is attempting to track down a wife or girlfriend who left him. However, stalkers may also be casual acquaintances, workplace colleagues, or even total strangers. Stalking may include a number of criminal or abusive behaviors, including forced entry to the person’s home, destruction of cars or other personal property, anonymous letters to the person’s friends or employer, or repeated phone calls, letters, or e-mails. About 80% of stalking cases reported to police involve men stalking women.

Diplomatic immunity – overveiw

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There has been a lot of talk on diplomatic immunity recently, especially regarding the Pope. As such I thought it may be a good plan to write a bit about diplomatic immunity and what it entails.

So how much immunity does a person really have? It depends on your rank, a quick breakdown of the can be seen here. Top diplomatic officers have full immunity, as do their deputies and families. That means ambassadors can commit just about any crime—from jaywalking to murder—and still be immune from prosecution. They can’t be arrested or forced to testify in court. (This category would probably include al-Madadi, who serves as third secretary in the Qatari embassy). Lower-ranking officials have a weaker type of protection called “functional immunity.” These officials are covered only for crimes committed within the scope of their regular work responsibilities. If, for example, a consular official got into a fistfight during a meeting with a U.S. official, he would be protected from prosecution. If the fight occurred at a bar over the weekend, he would not. Service staff for an embassy or consulate, from the kitchen employees to the valets, have no immunity whatsoever. And, contrary to popular belief, any diplomat can be issued a traffic citation. They just can’t be forced to pay it.

There are limits, however, though these usually require the person to be sent home and their higher ups to agree that conviction or repercussions are necessary In 1997, for example, the Republic of Georgia waived the immunity of its No. 2 diplomat after he killed a 16-year-old girl from Maryland while driving drunk. He was prosecuted, convicted of manslaughter, and served three years in a North Carolina prison before returning to Georgia, where he was paroled after two more years in prison.

Diplomatic immunity has been around for hundreds of years under customary international law as something of a golden rule: Treat other diplomats as you would like yours to be treated. This custom has also helped prevent politicians from ordering the prosecution of diplomats on trumped-up charges as a way to pressure their foreign enemies. The rules of diplomatic immunity were codified in 1961 in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

There are problems with this though; diplomatic immunity – the law which allowed the Libyan killers to escape with a police escort – is an offshoot of the theory that government members and agents are legally untouchable abroad for anything done during their term of office, even if it’s a crime of so called “private lust” (like rape or child abuse). However, it does not protect an ex-official of a state from prosecution for crimes against humanity, such as genocide or torture, where sovereign immunity is overridden by an international convention.

But this still leaves diplomats free to murder and rape and run up unpaid parking fines, because they are protected by a convention agreed in Vienna in 1961. This may have been expedient during the cold war, to protect diplomats from being framed (as well as blackmailed and honey-trapped). But it produced the result that foreign officials – and their spouses and children and chauffeurs – may fearlessly engage in serious crime, using their inviolable embassy premises and baggage for drug and gun-running and money laundering, or assist terrorists with whom their state is in political sympathy. The only thing that can happen is a declaration that they are persona non grata, followed by a police escort to the airport, unless their sending state waives immunity.

However, in a democracy this system sort of works as a diplomat will in time become such a liability in terms of international affairs and general public opinion that they will either be removed from their post or their immunity revoked.

In other systems though this is more complex: Going back to the case of the pope, for example, the Vatican state is a theocracy, so in effect the Pope is the government, meaning that he would have to dismiss or remove immunity from himself… and that won’t happen will it? I don’t think anyone ever would do that to theirselves.