ACT 732
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT, 2007 1(1)
AN ACT to provide protection from domestic violence
particularly for women and children and for connected purposes.
Domestic Violence
Domestic violence means engaging in the following within the
context of a previous or existing domestic
relationship:
(a) an act under the Criminal Code,
1960 (Act 29) which constitutes a threat or harm to a person under that Act;
(b) specific acts, threats to commit,
or acts likely to result in
(i) physical abuse,
namely physical assault or use of physical force against another person including the
forcible confinement or detention of another person and the deprivation of another person of
access to adequate food, water, clothing, shelter, rest, or subjecting another
person to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
(ii) sexual abuse, namely
the forceful engagement of another person in a sexual contact which includes sexual
conduct that abuses, humiliates or degrades the other person or otherwise violates
another person’s sexual integrity or a sexual contact by a person aware of being
infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or any other sexually transmitted
disease with another person without that other person being given prior information of
the infection;.
(iii) economic abuse,
namely the deprivation or threatened deprivation of economic or
financial
resources which a person is entitled to by law, the disposition or threatened disposition of
movable or immovable property in which another person has a material interest and hiding
or hindering the use of property or damaging or destroying property in which
another person has a material interest; and
(iv) emotional, verbal or
psychological abuse namely any conduct that makes another person feel
constantly unhappy, miserable, humiliated, ridiculed, afraid, jittery or depressed or to feel
inadequate or worthless;
(c) harassment including sexual
harassment and intimidation by inducing fear in another person; and
(d) behaviour or conduct that in any
way
(i) harms or may harm
another person,
(ii) endangers the
safety, health or well-being of another person,
(iii) undermines another
person’s privacy, integrity or security, or
(iv) detracts or is
likely to detract from another person’s dignity and worth as a human being.