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Victims of domestic violence: Attacked by husbands, trapped by society


MANILA, Philippines - It was the middle of the night when Rowena (not her real name) woke to the sounds of her husband in his drunken stupor returning home and struggling with the door. Her heart was pounding for she knew all too well from a long and painful experience what would happen next. And so it did: Before she had a chance to jump off the bed to defend herself, he was already punching her full in the face. By the time he was finished assaulting her, Rowena’s face and body was a mass of cuts and bruises which took more than a week to heal. Physically if not emotionally recovered, Rowena finally decided that enough was enough. “Ayoko na. Pagod na ako. (I couldn’t bear it any longer. I was tired)," she said. Then aged 22, a college dropout and jobless, Rowena packed her things up, got together her three children and left. “It was the best decision I’ve ever made," she said looking back. But were it not for her parents providing support and a place to go, Rowena admits she would not have been able to muster enough courage to leave. Like her, few battered wives have the luxury of returning to their childhood homes. According to the Gabriela Women’s Party, a Congressional group committed to promoting the rights and interests of marginalized and disadvantaged women, a Filipina is a victim of domestic abuse every two hours. “The problem of domestic violence is extremely common," says spokeswoman Gert Libang, “but the question that always pops into the heads of victims is: ‘How will I feed my children if I leave?’ She adds that nearly all of the 400 women who sought help from Gabriela Women’s Party last year were jobless mothers with no means to make a successful getaway from abusive partners. Sharp contradiction In a report entitled “Gender Issues – Philippines," the German donor, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation claims a “sharp contradiction" in gender equality. It says that while significant inroads have been achieved in recent years, including the election of two women as president and having many high-standing political, business and academic Filipinas, many women continue to suffer domestic abuse. The presence of a relatively strong women's liberation movement has not reduced a deeply engrained patriarchal culture in Filipino families, mostly Catholic and Islamic which views the father as the head of the family. “Traditional sex-role definitions assigning homemaking to women and financial provision for the family to men still persists," says in the report. Protection of women In the midst of the persistent patriarchal culture of Filipinos, women’s organizations have however successfully managed to bring the issue of domestic violence to Congress which passed the Anti-Violence against Women and their Children Act in 2004. Under this law, violence means not only physical abuse such as beatings and sexual attacks, but also that which is economic or psychological in nature. The law defines economic abuse as the withdrawal of financial support or preventing the victim from engaging in any legitimate occupation, except in cases wherein the other spouse or partner objects on valid, serious and moral grounds. Psychological abuse is when a woman or child is put to shame in public and subjected to verbal abuse, among others. Treating the woman as a sexual object ranks as “sexual abuse." If serious violence is committed against women while they are pregnant or in the presence of her children, courts are instructed to apply the maximum penalty allowable which includes life imprisonment. Reporting cases The Philippine National Police (PNP) says the law effectively encourages victims to come forward and report their case to the authorities. In less than ten years, police have noted a big leap in the number of cases reported to them: from 1,100 in 1996 to over 6,500 by 2005. The PNP says that while husbands are the primary perpetrators, some are boyfriends or unmarried partners. It believes, however, that there are many more victims who do not report attacks to the authorities because of reasons similar to those cited by Gabriela Women’s Party. They do not see a way out. “There is an element of forgiveness for the sake of family togetherness," says Chief Supt. Yolanda Tanigue, chief of the PNP Women and Children’s Division. Gabriela Women’s Party adds that the pain of breaking a family is further sealed by the tragic belief that violence in the confines of intimate relationships is trivial. It recounts cases when a victim rushes to the village chieftain or barangay captain to seek help, only to be told to go back home and discuss it out with the spouse because, after all, it is simply a couple’s quarrel or better known in Filipino as away mag-asawa. “For the barangay the quarrel only becomes a case when someone is already dead," says spokeswoman Libang. She claims that some male lawyers and judges fail to take the issue of domestic violence seriously enough. She maintains that some even have accused victims of having “raging insecurities" while others have been reprimanded for “wasting the court’s time." Libang adds: “Unfortunately, having laws to protect women does not mean the mindset of people has changed. We are left dealing with attitude and culture." According to the police, women who manage to pursue an expensive, long and stressful legal battle against their perpetrators are mostly coming from the middle and upper socio-economic strata. This means that domestic violence is not a monopoly of poor families. There are also victims coming from gated and exclusive subdivisions. Some are professionals and a few are occupying managerial positions. Perpetrators Chauvinism is a common thinking among perpetrators, according to PNP’s Supt. Tanigue. “If you ask them why you hurt your wife, a lot of them would simply say they did it because they want to reaffirm that being the man, they are the head of the family." In many cases, a sexist attitude is compounded by problems of drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling and womanizing. But Tanigue says there are also instances when violence at home is provoked by women themselves. There are men who have hit their partners out of anger and exasperation, coming home from work only to find his wife not only gambling, but cuddling with another man as well. This happens often in urban poor areas, she adds. “When women claim for their rights, we must also remember that these have equal responsibilities," Tanigue says. Impact on children Children, too, are not spared. Alongside the physical and emotional battering many women receive are the emotional scars left on children who are caught in the middle. There are at least three million children in the Philippines who are exposed to violence at home according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) which provides shelter, legal aid, psychosocial help, and medical aid to victims and their children. It maintains such children suffer the traumatic effects for the rest of their lives. “Their chances of becoming perpetrators are higher than those of children who are not exposed to domestic violence" says DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral. Such is the case of Rowena, who says her own children were unwilling witnesses to her continual beatings at the hands of her husband. She later saw the impact it had on them, particularly her eldest child who was seven when she finally left and who she describes as quiet, detached and absent-minded. Hence, ending a life with an abusive husband was a choice she made not only for herself, but more importantly, for her children. “It was right we left him." - Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project (The author is a television news reporter of GMA Network, Inc. and a regular contributor of special reports on women, children, health, education, and the environment to the network's news and public affairs website, GMANews.TV.)
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