Adil Najam
Sometimes one is left completely speechless. And I was upon seeing this picture in the Daily Times (21 April) of a man beating his wife as their son looks on.
But the real story here is about a society that chooses to loose its speech and prefers to remain silent in the face of a wide scale menace of acute domestic violence and spousal (and familial) abuse of women.
This is not something that is restricted only to the poorest classes. Although it is often hidden behind ’sufaid poshi’ such violence against women is more common in our society than most of us would care to accept. Remember, for example, the case of former Pakistan cricket captain Moin Khan who was taken in custody after beating his wife while drunk.
I wonder what the child in this photograph will grow up thinking. I wonder how many children have grown up witnessing such scenes. I wonder what such emotional scars have done to them.
It is indeed true that such incidents of violence happen all over the world. There is no evidence at all that they happen more in Pakistan than elsewhere. In terms of reported cases they may be even less. But that is not the point. This is not a competition.
Saying that it happens everywhere or that it happens even more in other places is neither an excuse nor a consolation. One case would, in my opinion, be one too many. And there are clearly much more than one. As Pakistanis - no, as human beings - we must speak against such violence everywhere; but, first within our own society.
…………..
domestic violence does not only means the violence from the husband and in the houses…….
why only BAHU burnt why not daughter of the house……….
why women only suffer…………..
why men not…………….
why the dont want to gave respect or love 2 women ……..
bcz a women is a mother ,daughter and a wife………
……..
………
………..
wht can be done to stope violence against women……
I realize I am late to the party here. I just found this post - in fact, I only recently found this site. (I’ve already bookmarked it, btw.) What I like about this is that an effort is made to rationally discuss issues, and to look at facts and reality.
From Jabir’s own CDC link: “In 2002, 76% of IPV homicide victims were female; 24% were male (Fox and Zawitz 2004).”
1. Even without adjustment, 3/4 is greater than 1/4 - and qualifies as “most.” As in, “most” DV victims are female.
2. Adjustment is required: About half of all male battering incidents are of “mutual violence” - and half of those are initiated by the man. This leaves 12% of men actually being abused without responding.
3. Many of those men are senior citizens battered by both men and women who are left in charge of them. Not right, but not the same as spousal abuse. Also, a small percentage are abused by their male partners. Remember, these numbers come from the US. This leaves men as the perpetrators.
All of this is besides the point: The point isn’t about what happens somewhere else, the point is - does it happen in Pakistan? Why is it disloyal to say that it does, if it does? Even arguing (against available evidence) that it is not as prevalent as “activists” would have us believe: Why, oh why, is it a bad idea to protect women from being hurt by their families?
Interesting that in this Daily Times article the pic shows a blonde woman clutching the shirt of a man. Thus bringing Westophobia into the argument without directly saying it, depicting Western women as aggressive, etc. and bringing up the totally unjustified specter of female on male abuse. (How many women are a physical danger to their husbands? Last time I checked men have 60% greater upper body strength).
The responses of the citizens were chilling. They really think that once a man has started hitting his wife, it’s just a bad day at work (also saying his wife should accept it when he wishes to de-stress after a hard day by attacking her, something Jabir also tried to say) or it can be smoothed over or the relatives will intervene (hint: his family life is where he learned to hit women in the first place, so what help can really be expected from that quarter). Also it’s very strange to think that women will file a flood of trivial lawsuits if the law is passed. Some people apparently think that physical abuse short of murder or hospitalization is too minor to be worth invoking protective legislation (the women will go to the police over beatings that “aren’t serious enough”).
At women’s shelter’s in the States, they teach volunteers to explain to women: he hits you once, you leave and you stay out. This may sound extreme to some, but unfortunately after many years of studying abusive behavior sociologists have learned 2 things: 1) It always worsens over time and 2) even with professional counseling the abuser almost never reforms. If the woman returns home, EVEN IF her husband enters counseling (which they often don’t want to do) her chances of being beaten again stand at 97% or better. “Anger management” does not help because abusers are not angry; they are controlling. These men say they lose their tempers, but this is in fact not what is happening. They are using terror to dominate their family, and this is a choice.
The first blow does not come out of the blue, either; there is usually years of psychological/emotional abuse and “testing behaviors” that lead up to the first hitting, which worsens over time (statistically, it starts usually when the woman is expecting and when there is a new baby at home…because this is the time when a woman is unable to easily leave. In Canada, women are questioned by their doctors during prenatal visits about partner abuse and told that if it starts, it will be during pregnancy or postpartum). First he slaps you, then you are hiding bruises, then you are lying to the doctor who is setting your arm and wondering how it all started, you didn’t think it would get this bad when he was just throwing dishes against the wall. That’s the reality.
That is why the motto: he hits you once, you leave and do not go back. You do not try to fix him (nor can anybody else fix him). By the time the first strike happens, a pattern of abuse must have been set and progressed past a certain point. So he doesn’t have a wife. Who cares. Not all men deserve wives, and no man who is a batterer should be married (and yes, of course there are some women who fall into this category).
It’s clear from this Daily Times article that virtually nobody in Pakistan except for the sweeper woman understands the dynamics of abuse. Almost everything the people said is dead wrong, just simply quantifiably wrong. That’s sad and does not bode well for the success of the new law.
I read a letter posted in an advice column, the writer was a woman from Mumbai but the mentality is the same; she had married, he was beating her, his parents lived with them and did not intervene, she went to marriage counseling, and the female counselor told her “Oh, anybody can be married to anybody as long as they are both trying their best!”
First of all, even without the abuse issue this is totally and completely false, but with the beatings factored in this “counselor” was doing this young woman a disservice and quite possibly endangering her life. But as per the desi culture this is probably what the counselor has to say to stay in business! If this counselor was educated abroad then this is surely not what she learned to say during her training.
The new law is all right but what good it will do with these awful attitudes in place who knows. Everything takes time I guess. At least some are starting to talk about it.
In Daily Times today
I think what’s important is not to demonize this man or others in his situation. He’s probably no monster; he’s doing what he knows. Like they say: hate the sin, not the sinner.
MQ sahib the case of mai was in court, she was warned by her lawyers to not to follow NGO’s as it would hurt her case. She didn’t listen. There can’t be two opinions about it. Second where were these NGO’s and their mentor the West when more than 30000 Kashmiri women got raped by Indian forces? Was there similar outcry in the MSM?
Jabir Khan,
[quote ] “Second, underreporting of rapes is major problem in the west, kindly do not deny it. Not many cases make it to the courts.”[/quote]
Again you are muddying the discussion. A lawyer would say, obfuscating it.
I am not denying anything. I simply corrected your estimates. The factual position on reporting such cases in the US is that only 16 per cent rapes are reported. (I am not pulling these figures from my hat.) In Pakistan the percentage is far less! But that is not the issue.
Contrary to what you say, when a case is reported in the US or the West, it has to end up in a court and dealt with according to the law. No honor code, no SHO or a wadera, no congressman or a senator, no mayor or a governor can bury the case or force a “muk-muka” on the victim. Nor they have such dubious laws by which you can bribe the victim and let the perpetrator go free.
[quote]”Third, try to follow me, I am not saying we don’t have problems but we shall not let some dollar hungry liberal goon NGOs hijack these issues. In nearly all the famous cases this is what happened in the end.” [/quote]
Yes, I do follow you. No “liberal goon” or NGOs would hijack your issues if you dealt with them yourself. If you don’t deal with the issues then other will “hijack” them whether you allow them or not. This is the crux of the whole discussion. Deal with the issues of rape and DV in your society. Don’t hide them! All the “famous cases” became famous when you didn’t do anything about them.
*grin*
Jabir,lagta hay apna Akif Nizam sahab ke “Aqal” kal raat _Domestic Violence_ ka shikar hogaye hey jis k waja se ye behak gye hain