Abstract

Women's groups and supportive organisations all over the world, during the last few decades have made a numerous attempt to bring a paradigm change in eradicating the violence against the women. Gender-based violence is now on the public agenda, although in the past it was only discussed in private though it caused quiet misery to the women. Domestic violence violates the human rights of women. Rape, for instance, is a grave breach of a woman's bodily integrity, her right to dignity, security, and freedom from discrimination rather than a “affront to a woman's chastity.” Domestic violence against women in considered as one of the serious offense against the women, it includes all type of verbal, physical, and sexual attacks that violate a woman's physical body, sense of self, and sense of trust, regardless of age, colour, culture, or nation. Generally, this is a gender-based violence that result in psychological suffering for women as well. Women and children, as well as their relatives, might suffer severely from mental health problems as a direct consequence of this act of violence. Human rights and public health have been severely compromised for centuries due to this. The World Health Organization reports that between five and twenty percent of women's healthy life years between the ages of fifteen and forty-four are lost due to domestic abuse. The author of this work focused on the effects of domestic violence on women's mental health and conducted a literature assessment on international agreements and laws enacted to combat the problem.

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