VIOLENCE
IN THE FAMILY: (United
Nations International Year of the Family 1994, Occasional Papers Series, Family
and Crime No.3 1992)
Prevention of domestic violence is of
utmost importance. Recourse to physical force by parents on children and by
spouses when dealing with each other promotes the use of violence outside the
family.
Verbal and emotional maltreatment and
abuse can be as intimidating, demoralizing, damaging, troubling and terrorizing
as physical abuse. Verbal insults and humiliations, repeated constantly in a young
lifetime, are what socializes children into violence and sets them apart from
the other youngsters who learn quite different lessons in their family and
social interactions.
Violence causes feelings of entrapment,
degradation and humiliation. Self-blame is common to all victims of family
violence. The deleterious effect of violence in the family underscores the need
for effective preventive and treatment strategies. Once family interactions
become dominated by violent processes, the situation is difficult to alter.
However, numerous programmes around the
world prove that families can be helped even in these situations. Activities of
immediate protection and assistance include shelters, emergency telephones,
self- help and governmental groups for battered women and children, and therapy
programmes. For offenders, only limited therapeutic treatment is available.
In some countries, self-help efforts
have been the response to perceived police inactivity or insensitivity to the
occurrence of domestic violence. Numerous countries have voluntary mutual
defence groups. In one community, “habitant groups” take measures to prevent
domestic violence from escalating by placing the victim with another family for
a short period and disciplining the offender. “Neighbourhood watch” programmes
and other community self-help programmes can effectively expose and intervene
in maltreatment, diminishing the level of tolerance for it. The importance of
providing immediate protection has been borne out by cross-cultural studies
highlighting the readiness of kin and neighbours to intervene in violent or
potentially violent situations in societies with non-violent child-rearing
practices and relatively low incidences of wife battery.
Special measures have been introduced to
protect children from both domestic abuse and violence outside the home.
Examples include neighbourhood car pools organized to drive children to and
from school and extracurricular activities and the designation of certain homes
in the neighbourhood with special decals as safe houses where a child in danger
or fear may seek refuge and assistance.
What complicates the prevention of
violence is the fact that violence in the family is frequently influenced by
broader cultural patterns. Research suggests that battery in the family is
related to the general level of violence that exists in a particular society.
Violence constitutes an abuse of power. It often emerges from the desire to dominate, degrade, subjugate, possess and control others. In the long run, the promotion of human rights, better education and the improvement of the status of women are needed, as well as a change of attitude towards domination, be it sexual or any other kind. Training individuals in the dynamics of successful family relationships includes the promotion of gender equality, equality in partnership between spouses and the teaching of coping skills. The starting- point is to strengthen the strong and well- functioning aspects of families.
