STARTING this week, I want to look at the issue at domestic violence. Now, I’m well aware that this is something that you can’t quite sum up, and that the term ‘the issue of domestic violence’ is inadequate to cover the scope and depth of this varied and complex thing, this illness, which seems to have taken over our society like a cancer. Indeed, the point of my examining this issue, as I intend to, over the next three weeks is that I hope to add something of substance to the debate; something I believe is impossible in the limited space of this column.  I believe that there are several areas in which we can work as a society to get things right when it comes to mitigating the threat of domestic violence, and pending further research into the issue, I intend to work towards offering some comprehensive suggestions as to what can be done.
Towards establishing a definition, the most concise and yet detailed one I can give you comes from the introduction to the article on ‘Domestic Violence’ on Wikipedia:
“Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, family violence, and intimate partner violence (IPV), can be broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, friends or cohabitation.  Domestic violence has many forms including physical aggression (hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, restraining, slapping, throwing objects), or threats thereof; sexual abuse; emotional abuse; controlling or domineering; intimidation; stalking; passive/covert abuse (e.g., neglect); and economic deprivation.  […]  Awareness, perception, definition and documentation of domestic violence differs widely from country to country, and from era to era. … According to the Centers for Disease Control, domestic violence is a serious, preventable public health problem affecting more than 32 million Americans, or over 10% of the U.S. population.”

What is also interesting is that the same article states only a third of the cases of domestic violence are actually reported in the US and the UK. I can only imagine what obtains here.

Locally, deaths attributable to domestic violence seem to have gone without any indication of slowing down — I am unsure of the actual numbers of women who have been killed by their significant other so far this year, but when you read just the article headline of one piece in last week’s Sunday Chronicle, ‘Another woman killed by husband’, you can’t help but feel a sense of outrage.

When Minister of Human Services Priya Manickchand launched the ‘Stamp it Out, Take Control’ campaign against domestic violence three years ago, it was rightfully applauded as a significant initiative in reforming the official response to the problem, including tightening enforcement of the 1996 Domestic Violence Act.

Now, I don’t go out and about much, so I don’t know the general tone of what has gone on in terms of public reaction to the enforcement of the legislation, but judging from little snippets of conversation I’ve heard at various places, there seems to be a certain amount of disbelief among men at how absurd and unfair the law seems.

For example, I was at the barbershop about two weeks ago when one of the barbers started talking about some problem he was having with some young woman; somebody who, from all indications, wasn’t the person he had a home relationship with.  His customer, an older man, helpfully suggested that when a woman got disrespectful, just two slaps, and she would calm right down, to which the young barber replied, with words to the effect:
“You can’t do that now, bannas; you just put a lil hand pun them girls these days and the Minister say to jail you.”

More remarkable than that statement was all the headshaking and grumbling in agreement that followed that statement.  What it indicated to me was that these men had formed a consensus that the law was somehow doing them an injustice by making abuse of the women in their lives punishable by the term spent in jail.  Now, I know that those ten or so men that were in the barbershop that night may not be representative of the society as whole, but I can’t help but project that this mindset isn’t restricted to that random group, and that it may actually be widespread across the society.

If this supposition were true, if it is that the enforcement of the law on what is such a clear-cut matter seems to be just an irritating and overzealous inconvenience to men, it is clear that we are still a very long way from stamping it out, the attitude that says that men are allowed to “put two slap in” their women in order to keep them in order.  Subsequently, not only do the killings continue, but the reports of domestic assault as well, almost daily in the newspapers. 

And even more insidious and widespread than that are the unreported cases of physical violence, as well as the abuse being meted out, primarily to women and children, that fall under the various categories mentioned in the Wikipedia article quoted at the beginning of this column. 

Over the course of this series, what I’ll be doing is examining ways in which we as a society can recapture and convert into sustainable initiatives the very energy that was roused by the original ‘Stamp it Out’ campaign; ways in which we build upon the progress made with regard to enforcement, while getting to the core root of the issue, which really is the engraining of a certain attitude with regard to abuse that has become part of our collective psychological makeup.

For example, I am unsure of the statistics but I would bet that deaths from domestic violence constitute a significant fraction of those considered road fatalities: yet, the stress our education system places, in any sort of universal way, on teaching children about domestic violence is negligible compared to what they learn about road safety.  Or on the flip side of the education equation, considering the scope of the problem and the issues of underreporting, isn’t there time that some sort of training be undertaken, or some manual developed, to sensitise educators, from the guidance counselor to the Spanish teacher, on how to recognize the signals being sent off from a child who is either a direct victim of domestic violence or who is constantly being exposed to it being committed in front of them.

NGOs and community-based organisations, for example, and this is something I intend to develop further in the series, can play a greater part in supporting what I believe to be a revolutionary governmental push against domestic violence, irrespective of their core mandate – the problem is that universal, to the point I am sure of affecting the membership of these organisations.  The only danger, and this might ruffle some feathers, is that a push in the latter direction might prove to be off-target in its execution since that often the most visible people in that sector, and those with most access to such initiatives, are middle class people who live in ivory clouds and are far removed from what is a widespread issue but still overwhelmingly concentrated among the poor and disadvantaged.

Next week, I’m going to be developing on some of the issues dealt with above, and if it is that you have some serious input into this issue, your views would be welcome. (burrowesk@yahoo.com).