O crime de violência doméstica contra pessoa vulnerável em razão da idade

: em particular a exigência de coabitação

Abstract

This dissertation deals with the theme of the crime of domestic violence, in particular with regard to victims who are vulnerable due to their age and the problem of the requirement of cohabitation of these victims with the aggressor. The crime of domestic violence, foreseen and punished under the terms of article 152 of the Penal Code, consists in the practice or omission of conducts capable of integrate the concept of physical or psychological abuse, which may affect the victim's health, with whom aggressor maintains or maintained an affective bond or who is a particularly helpless person with whom he cohabits. The purpose of the investigation was to focus on analyzing the legal type of the article 152, as well as on the elderly and children as vulnerable victims of this crime, especially with regard to the requirement of cohabitation with the aggressor, so that the legal type is fulfilled. With regard to the elderly, we focus on the typical behaviors of abuse, focusing on the dramatic consequences that result from this type of damage, taking into account the special weakness of the victim, as well as the high number of “black figures” that remain to be detected. We also focus on children and young people as vulnerable victims, especially with regard to the extension of the content of the educational power-duty attributed to parents in the exercise of their parental responsibilities and the boundary between legitimate punishment and abusive conduct that constitutes an act of violence towards the child, after that we focused on the situation of the child who experiences a family environment based on mistreatment. Finally, we end this dissertation by calling attention to an urgent legislative change that, in our view, would be extremely important for the protection of the elderly and children as victims of the crime of domestic violence, when they are relatives of the aggressor, even though they don’t live in the same house together.

Date of Award	13 Apr 2021
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria Elisabete Ferreira (Supervisor)