Editorial comment March 1, 2008
By John Schalch
Domestic violence is one of the more abhorrent elements of our society.
It violates a non-negotiable right that everyone deserves to be afforded personal safety.
This should mean that the stronger members of our community (usually the males) should be duty bound by societal laws to protect, rather than violate and harm, women and children.
The current and powerful domestic violence awareness media campaign moves to dispel one of the greatest and most dangerous myths held by members of the community: Domestic Violence is a Private Matter.
It is not!
Physical assault in the home is a serious crime and must be viewed as seriously as assault outside the home. Domestic violence can lead to murder - it is not a private affair.
In fact, statistics have shown that about 30 per cent of female murders were committed by the intimate partner of the victim.
The vast majority of these occurred during the relationship or around the time of the dissolution of the relationship.
For us to understand the underlying factors of domestic violence, it is vital that other frequently held myths are dispelled.
One of those is that women provoke domestic violence by nagging or other annoying behaviour.
No one asks for or deserves to be abused - there is no excuse for domestic violence.
In fact, most victims of domestic violence do everything they can to pacify the other party to avoid further violence.
And let’s not forget that domestic violent call-outs take up 20 to 30 per cent of police time.
Another myth is that battered women can easily escape by leaving home. Wrong.
There are a variety of reasons for this including financial, fear of reprisals, concern for children, shame and/or no safe houses or refuges to go to.
This final point is the crux of today’s P1 article which calls for government and community funds to help establish a women’s refuge or halfway house for victims of domestic violence in the Mid Canterbury district.
We need to become active.
The new media ads are telling us that it’s not okay to sit back and treat domestic violence as “a private matter”.
Having battered women in our community left with nowhere to go is not a private matter - it’s a shame on us and our government.
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From ASHBURTON GUARDIAN January 17 2008
Working against family violence
Ashburton’s new project co-ordinator for Families without Violence Jill Ross aims to change attitudes. Photo Carmen Rooney • Over half the country’s murders can be attributed to family violence.
• Six women were killed by their partners or former partners over the seven weeks covering Christmas 2005, leaving 19 children without a mother.
• During December and January 2005/06 police attended nearly 11,000 family violence call-outs – that’s about one incident every eight minutes.
• More than 6000 children witnessed this violence, half of those were under five years old.
Against this backdrop Jill Ross takes up her new job as project co-ordinator for Ashburton’s Families without Violence Network.
While the statistics might shock some, Mrs Ross is no stranger to the darker side of human nature, having stepped into the fray as a Department of Social Welfare social worker in 1973, back in the days when training was delivered on the job.
By 1985 she was back in her hometown of Ashburton, still working for the department. Apart from the eight years she took out while her children were small Mrs Ross has been involved in the field one way or another ever since.
“I’ve seen the end result and the harm caused by domestic violence,” she said.
As well as working for government, she has extensive experience with non-profit organisations, contracted as family support worker for the Safer Community Council (SCC), and promoting positive parenting as regional co-ordinator of the SKIP programmes.
“I keep getting recycled,” she said.
As of last week, Mrs Ross is employed for 16 hours a week by the Ashburton Families without Violence Network, to co-ordinate a project set to challenge our acceptance of violence. The project is administered by SCC, where Mrs Ross has an office.
“The aim is to raise awareness in the community about what domestic violence is and the impact of family violence, people need to look at a wider perspective than black eyes, it affects everyone in the community,” she said.
The project links into the government’s “it’s not ok” campaign, currently screening on national television.
Next month the message will be ramped up as phase two of the campaign kicks in, and Mrs Ross has been in Christchurch this week previewing the new ads.
While she says community understanding about domestic violence has evolved through education and changing values, there’s still a long way to go.
And Mrs Ross is up for the challenge.
“We’ve accepted violence in our society for too long – the big message is that it is everybody’s business and we all need to speak up,” she said.
Source: www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz
