13,
October 2015 Domestic
Violence
Root
causes
Domestic
violence (DV) takes many forms. It crosses different Indian ethnic groups,
regional and religious groups and socio-economic classes. What is common among the abusers is a strong,
albeit obsessive desire to impose power and control over an intimate partner.
It often takes the form of verbal abuse, intimidation, coercion, isolation of
the victim from friends and family, threats, sexual and other forms of physical
violence. For poor and uneducated women with children, DV can be especially
traumatizing because many feel trapped lacking English skills to seek help and
escape their tormentors. This also poses a linguistic challenge for the
care-givers who must provide a safe support system in a regional language
familiar to the callers.
Lack of
safe houses and shelters often poses a huge challenge to DV support services
and victims alike.
The
current patriarchal system in India plays a major in the devaluation and
subjugation of women and much needs to be done to promote complete gender
equality. Financial disagreements, in-law visits often drive a wedge between
partners; sometimes husbands are conflicted with misguided loyalties between
their mothers and spouses. Wives are often relegated to a subordinate role to
please their visiting in-laws.
Sometimes
husbands withhold important documents, such as Naturalization papers to inject
fear of deportation as a means of control.
When I
became involved
For
many years my wife (Tej, a Maitri volunteer) and I (Jagjit Singh) have been
very active supporters of women experiencing domestic violence. Our involvement
with various support groups predates the formation of Maitri.
Beginning
in the early 70’s my wife underwent training with the mid-Peninsula Support
Network for Battered Woman and soon thereafter our home was designated a safe
home for women wishing to receive temporary respite from their abusive spouses.
The women that we sheltered were mostly Caucasians. In the early 80’s, I signed
up for extensive training with the Palo Alto based Parental Stress and Teen
hotline (PSTH) which offered a variety of phone support services to callers
experiencing family issues. I continued to work with PSTH for about 9 years. In
1991 shortly after the founding of Maitri, Tej underwent an extensive training
program and became actively involved utilizing her language skills to reach out
to victims of domestic violence.
Lacking
the necessary linguistic skills (Hindi, Punjabi) I could only serve in a
peripheral support role to Tej who did all ‘the heavy lifting’. Before Maitri obtained the necessary funding
for the shelters, we offered our home to many of the abused women and I
experienced firsthand the cruel and degrading treatment that many were forced
to endure. I am truly in awe of the work being done by this courageous group of
volunteers some of whom received verbal and physical threats in spite of
maintaining extreme caution of hiding their vital contact information.
In 2001
Tej and I were approached by Father Hester who was seeking volunteers to offer
spiritual care for Indian patients at Stanford Hospital. After undergoing
extensive training we began weekly visits to offer moral support to these
patients.
How Can
the Community Support Maitri?
What is
sorely needed is the injection of more funds to an over-burdened system which
would allow more shelters to be built and an outreach program which would serve
as continuous education forums to better educate the Indian diaspora. Religious
intuitions could play a much larger role in promoting domestic harmony and
gender equality. Religious beliefs that reinforces the victim’s subordinate
role and thus legitimizes the abuser’s behavior needs be rejected and replaced
with more positive messages. Funding for documentaries and films would help
educate the public on the importance of demolishing current unhealthy
stereotypes of women.
Much
more can be done using social media to increase public awareness on how
pervasive DV has become.
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