Set out below are various terms and their definitions:

Domestic violence (häusliche Gewalt)

Refers to all forms of physical, sexual and/or psychological violence between persons in a social relationship, mostly in a domestic setting.

Section 238 of the German Criminal Code refers to acting in a manner that is suitable to seriously restrict another person's lifestyle by persistently:

• seeking the other person's physical proximity
• trying to establish contact with the other person by means of telecommunications, or another means of communication, or through third parties
• improperly using the other person's personal data to:
  1. order goods or services for that person
  2. induce third parties to make contact with that person
• threatening the other person, one of their relatives, or someone close to them with injury to their life or physical integrity, health or liberty
• committing other comparable acts

Involves constant attacks or torment (die Schikanierung; die Belästigung).

Is one who suffers loss, is killed or injured, etc. (das Opfer).

Is someone who commits sexual violence and, in a wider context, forms of physical or psychological violence (der Missbrauchstäter; derTäter).

Is a judicial protection option for civil courts that is provided by the Act on Civil Law Protection Against Violence (die Schutzanordnung).

Refer to the right to demand another to do, to tolerate or to refrain from doing something (der Anspruch; der Klagegrund).

Is sexual coercion, in a particularly serious case, in which the perpetrator — who is the victim's spouse — has sexual intercourse with the victim or commits such similar sexual acts on the victim that are particularly degrading, especially if they involve the penetration of the body (Vergewaltigung in der Ehe).

Generally, most terms are not defined in the relevant statutes and codes. Rather, these terms have been and are successively defined in the courts' case law.

Sexual harassment

Section 184i of the German Criminal Code refers to touching another person in a sexual manner and thereby harassing that person (die sexuelle Belästigung).

Sexual acts

Section 184h of the German Criminal Code refers only to acts that areof some relevance to the protected legal interest in question (diesexuellen Handlungen).

Sexual abuse

Refers to performing sexual acts on minors or on an adult, particularly vulnerable persons entrusted to the perpetrator (e.g., sick or vulnerable institutionalized persons or prisoners) (der sexuelle Missbrauch).