Domestic Violence, What To Do?
Image from the Dehiwela Puppet Museum.
Most wars are civil, and most violence is domestic. I’ve had enough and more conversations about how bad domestic violence is and ‘what to do’. The latter phase, in Sri Lanka at least, is more of an impotent shrug than an actual question. But something can be done, as this article about Maryland shows.
Between 40 and 50 percent of female homicide victims are killed by their husbands, boyfriends, and exes. And, for about half of these victims, police had been alerted to previous incidents of abuse.
There is, however, one exception to this grim trend: Maryland. Since 2007, domestic violence homicides in the state have fallen by a stunning 40 percent. What is Maryland doing that other states are not? The answer appears to lie with a former high school nurse, an ex-Washington, D.C., police lieutenant, and their ground-breaking efforts to protect the most vulnerable victims of abuse.
What’s the solution? Basically to ask if women were being threatened, to take those threats seriously, and to then refer them to a local shelter that would take the women seriously as well.
By the end of 2005, the group had developed a series of questions that they called “the screen.” The first three questions concerned the most important predictors of future homicide: Has the abuser used a weapon against you? Has he threatened to kill you? Do you think he might kill you? If the woman answered yes to any of those questions, she “screened in.” If she answered no, but yes to four of the remaining eight questions, again, she was in. Among these were other, less obvious indicators of fatal violence: Has he ever tried to kill himself? Does she have a child that he knows isn’t his?
The officer would then present her with an assessment: Others in your circumstances have been killed; help is available if you want it. If the woman agreed, an officer would dial the local shelter from a police cell phone (to prevent the abuser from finding out about the call) and hand it over.
There is a pervasive idea that domestic ‘disputes’ need stay in the home, but when it comes to threats of physical violence and rape, it’s simply not true. These are public health and safety issues (not to mention moral ones) and public policy needs to adapt.
It seems like the biggest issue is simply taking the problem, and women, seriously, which Sri Lanka has a serious problem with. We lack almost all components of this policy. Cops don’t really take domestic violence or threats seriously, and there are very few local shelters to refer people to. There are also cultural taboos which favor keeping a marriage together, even if it’s abusive. These thing can all change, however, as a matter of policy, or if people privately fund local shelters enough and lobby for basic screening from the cops. It seems to make sense.
Mohsin Hamid, author of How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia, has a nice 
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I won’t add too much commentary, but just read I guess. The youngest Rajapaksa, Rohitha (Chi Chi) has given an amazing interview to the 
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I recently came across a very worrying statistic regarding attitudes to domestic violence – a report on the Sunday Times website (http://bit.ly/JnYLmp) claimed that 54% of Sri Lankan girls think that wife beating is justifiable. Like some others who commented on this story, I was skeptical of this statistic.
Looking into it further I found the statistic came from a recent UN report on adolescent health and well being (which can be found here http://www.unicef.org/media/files/PFC2012_A_report_card_on_adolescents.pdf), which did report the 54% statistic but included the caveat that it was based on a non-standard definition of domestic violence. However, UNICEF also reported that the statistic was taken from a national survey, and sure enough I was able to find the report from the Department of Census and Statistics in Sri Lanka where this was reported – it is the 2006/7 Demographic and Health survey which can be found at http://www.statistics.gov.lk/social/DHS%20200607%20FinalReport.pdf
On page 194, there is a description of the method they used to determine women’s attitudes to domestic violence, which essential involved them asking over 14000 women from across the island whether they thought it was acceptable for a husband to hit the wife in any one of 5 scenarios. The scenarios were: if she burns the food, argues with him, goes out without telling him, neglects the children, and refuses sexual relations with him. The table on page 195 of this report makes for some grim reading:
According to the Sri Lanka Department of Census and Statistics, the statistic reported by the Sunday times is true – 54% of the 321 15-19 year old girls surveyed thought at least one of the above reasons justified wife beating. However, even worrying is the information that more than 50% of all the women surveyed (out of a total of 14692) thought at least one of these reasons justified wife beating. One could argue that the reason for such a result might be a lack of education, but it seems that even out of the 10000+ women who had at least a secondary education, more than 50% thought there were justifiable reasons for wife beating.
What have we been teaching our children?!? How many more generations of girls (and boys!) will grow into adulthood thinking that wife beating is OK?
Wife beating…. mmmmmmmm…. (just kidding)
@Hibuddy – I like a joke as much as the next guy, but I really don’t see anything to laugh about in this case.