Study Reveals Lasting Impact of Domestic Violence on Children’s Health

These results unveiled by the HCP are extracted from the 2019 national survey on violence against women and men, reports La Map. This is a survey that attests, based on concrete evidence, that domestic violence does indeed have significant repercussions on the health and psychosocial development of children.

Indeed, around 16% of women victims of domestic violence reported that their children, aged 5 to under 18, have health problems, especially of a psychological and behavioral nature, the HCP notes, adding that by type of problem experienced by children, 40.4% of women victims of domestic violence mentioned isolation and grief, 32.4% chills, panic attacks or epilepsy, 21.5% nightmares and 22.4% enuresis.

According to the HCP, in addition to health problems, children also suffer from cognitive and behavioral disorders, such as school regression according to 22.5% of victims, violence and aggression (18.9%), school dropout (7%), delinquency (2.3%) and running away (1%), noting that, following the most serious incident of physical violence that occurred in the last 12 months in the marital context, 8.1% of victims said their children had to be absent from school.

Furthermore, the HCP notes, domestic violence also affects the quality of the mother-child relationship, further exacerbating the child’s distress, "especially since the victim mother becomes less available to meet the needs and demands of the child at the very moment when he is experiencing great difficulties that call for more support." And to conclude that "These children exposed to domestic violence are more at risk, once adult, of reproducing the parental pattern and of living intimate relationships marked by violence." The same survey found that the prevalence of violence is particularly high among women whose partner has lived in an environment marked by domestic violence (73%) compared to that relating to women whose partners have not witnessed this violence (45.1%).

It should be noted that this survey took into account a population of girls and women aged 15 to 74 who reported having experienced physical and/or sexual violence in the last 12 months. It was carried out between February and July 2019 by the HCP with the support of UN Women - Morocco, as part of the national and international mobilization campaign for the elimination of violence against women, the same source indicates.