The silence has been broken, shattered in fact. The days when the abuse of women was an issue that was whispered about and which people pretended did not happen are fast becoming a thing of the past. Of course not every battered woman is in a place where she feels secure enough to stand up and confess that she is/was being abused. There are some who still blame their bruises on walking into cupboard doors or falling down stairs, or who conveniently develop amnesia, because they are either worried that blaming their partners will unleash more violence on them and their children, or afraid that they will be judged by their peers.
This newspaper’s weekly column ‘What the People Say’ asked the man/woman in the street this week why they thought women stayed in abusive relationships and what more could be done to help them. The ten interviewees, male and female, were unanimous in their empathy with women in such situations. They opined that women stayed because of love, fear, for economic reasons, because they lacked the strength to get out, so their children could have two parents, to save face, because they were forced to or because they were in denial. None of these are new reasons, they have all been previously acknowledged and documented; what was new was the readiness with which respondents answered and their passion in speaking out. This speaks to a greater awareness of the seriousness of the issue; a few years ago, an interviewer would have struggled to get as many people on record.
Unfortunately, however, awareness and education has not helped curb the scourge of violence against women as the evidence seems to indicate that it is not only a chronic disease in society, but a communicable one as well.
There could be several reasons for this, but the most obvious one is that the perpetrators are not getting the message, which, simply is that it is unacceptable. Men who use physical violence find ways to dissemble when faced with their wrongdoings; they will claim that they were retaliating after being lied to, cheated on, robbed, disrespected, and even attacked. However, there is not and will never be a good reason for violence to be used against one’s partner or children. For that matter, using violence to settle any issue or argument is also wrong.
In relationships and domestic situations, people use emotional, psychological and physical abuse to gain control over their partners and children. This is learned behaviour which is then taken into other aspects of their lives. It is a sad fact that boys are still being taught by their fathers, and mothers in many cases, that they must be tough and in order to portray this, they are encouraged with violent behaviours. Little wonder then, that arguments today − whether male with male or male with female – do not end until there is the involvement of fists, knives, sticks and more recently the new weapon of choice – guns.
The second part of the question on domestic violence posed by the Stabroek News reporter was what more could be done to help battered women, and this seemed to have stumped the interviewees. There is a strongly held belief that battered women’s syndrome is similar to drug addiction; the victim has to reach out for the hand that will help to pull her through. Individuals and non-governmental organizations such as Help and Shelter and Red Thread, to some extent, have helped provide the education and awareness that act as detoxifiers to disempowered women.
There have been far fewer interventions targeted at men whose acts of violence similarly addict and disempower them. Medical science teaches that the best way to cure a disease is to not only treat the symptoms, but to attack the source – the virus or bacteria – which causes it. This means therefore that the awareness and education programmes which are implemented to empower women to escape the ills of domestic violence, must also systematically target men – not once a year, and not on an ad hoc basis. This will no doubt involve some modification of the programme and one hopes it can be budgeted for in 2009. Guyana is not at war, yet this year has been replete with all forms of violence – and it is not over yet. There is still time to call a halt to the madness before the start of the new year or at least to begin to end it. To borrow from Obama’s campaign slogan, yes we can, we must and quickly if we as a people are going to survive.