Hello
I just had to blog about this wonderful work Stella is doing. But first the little I know about stella, I discovered her from National Encomium, when I was based in Lagos. I found her column interesting. She has a very humorous style of writing, creative, and very very daring. Then I left Africa and searched for Nigeria related news and discovered her in blogspot, I instantly followed her, till she stopped posting there and opened her own website. Naturally I followed her again.
Now back to the main story, she started a series on Domestic Abuse, where victims could write anonymously and just share their experiences. Please click on the following link below
Domestic Violence Diary 1
Domestic Violence Diary 2
Domestic Violence Diary 3
Please read and I hope it provokes something in you....
Mena
Have a great day
Domestic Abuse is very hard thing to understand .
ReplyDeleteAnd for victims leaving, well you have to let people make their own decision about when if ever to leave the relationship. Usually they see more reasons to stay, societal expectations, family ties or name, the home, the money, the shame......all sorts of things they see as reasons to stay rather than leave. The victim is often most at risk as they leave the relationship .
That's before you even think about their feelings towards the person who is being violent( physical or mental).
Thanks for posting this
This is not to downplay the seriousness of domestic abuse, however sometimes people misjudge situations - I represented a husband whose wife had him look after the children when she went out, not returning until 1 am. He guessed that he had been babysitting whilst she was being unfaithful and challenged her about it. he blocked the bedroom door so that she could not run away and demanded to know if she was committing adultery - she pushed past him and phoned the police and reported her husband for abuse. the children witnessed mum and dad arguing, but were quite young and didn't know more than it was because mum was 'home late'.
ReplyDeletewhen the police picked him up, the police as 'knights in shining armour' gave the guy a kicking as a wife-beater. he had not laid a finger on her and they had assaulted an innocent man.
she had been unfaithful and he still did not abuse her.
another guy was a 'wife beater' - so I got a domestic violence order for the wife. at court, the guy showed me the scratches where his wife had attacked him because he was not willing to have the kid when she wanted to have a dirty weekend with another guy. her only injuries had been a bruise on the wrists and upper arms (consistent with her as an attacker being restrained) it turned out that she wanted an order to keep her husband away because her married lover was popping round for a quickie on his way home from work on Fridays, which coincided with her husband picking up his son for visits.
oddly enough, the incident happened about a week after i had told her that I could not get the order against her husband because she had never accused him of bad behaviour.
I have had more cases of false allegations than genuine ones in the last year, so whilst domestic abuse is real, so many people 'cry wolf' that it is more difficult to protect real victims. people making false allegations are doing a massive disservice to genuine victims.
sometimes, what is going on is not obvious and people should be slow to judge.
there is also the effect on the child's view of how adults of their gender are supposed to behave, so it is harmful for a child to witness abuse. it is rarely so bad as to truly 'scar' the child for life and can be overcome.
children are 'survivors' not 'victims'.
Lets face it, the 'victim' can still love the abuser and may not need intervention from anyone.
ReplyDelete@Anothersideofthecoin: When you say the victim can still love the abuser, do you mean they are in love with the real person, warts and all or are they in love with the image they have created of the abuser in their mind? I've been doing research on DV and I've read some theories that the victim is actually attached to their dreams of the perfect life they may live with the abuser somewhere down the line, although in a lot of cases, that dream never becomes a reality.
ReplyDelete@Anothersideofthecoin: When you say the victim can still love the abuser, do you mean they are in love with the real person, warts and all or are they in love with the image they have created of the abuser in their mind? I've been doing research on DV and I've read some theories that the victim is actually attached to their dreams of the perfect life they may live with the abuser somewhere down the line, although in a lot of cases, that dream never becomes a reality.
ReplyDelete@Anothersideofthecoin: When you say the victim can still love the abuser, do you mean they are in love with the real person, warts and all or are they in love with the image they have created of the abuser in their mind? I've been doing research on DV and I've read some theories that the victim is actually attached to their dreams of the perfect life they may live with the abuser somewhere down the line, although in a lot of cases, that dream never becomes a reality.
ReplyDeleteAll those stories on stella dimoko korkus blog chilled me to the bone. My only warmth is the fact that those ladies lived to tell the tale.
ReplyDelete*weeping* I saw the story of my life in that blog
ReplyDelete