adminAmong the victims was a nine-month-old baby poisoned by its mother in Mutoko following an argument with her husband. The two had reportedly argued over the paternity of the child. I believe this is just a tip of the iceberg.
In the case of Zimbabwe, this is a clear indication that domestic violence continues to rear its ugly head despite the existence of legislation such as the Domestic
Violence Act and other supporting legislative arms, to try and rein it in.
Simply explained, the Domestic Violence Act (DVA) of 2006 makes provision for the protection and relief of victims of domestic violence and to provide for matters connected with or incidental to domestic violence.
According to the Act, domestic violence means an unlawful act, omission or behaviour, which results in death or the direct infliction of physical, sexual or mental injury to any complainant.
It mentions the types of domestic abuse as physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional, verbal, psychological abuse, economic abuse, forced virginity testing, pledging of women or girls for purposes of appeasing spirits and sexual intercourse between father-in-law and newly married daughter-in-law.
When the legislation was passed in 2006, the general belief was that it would result in the reduction in the number of spouses who abuse their partners, since it was now a criminal offence, which even warranted a custodial sentence, if found guilty of contravening some sections of the act.
The Act gave hope to vulnerable women and to some extent men, who had been living in abusive relationships and needed to have the law by their side to protect them from further abuse. For some time the battle seem to have been won until about two years ago, when police reported an upsurge in domestic violence cases, across the country.
Whether or not the increase in reported cases of domestic violence could largely have been as a result of the level of awareness among people, one thing we can’t ignore is that the gender based violence is on the increase and many people have lost their lives.
Of the reported cases the majority were attributed to infidelity, while others were because of long standing disputes, which brings me to the point of the need to evaluate one’s relationships and identity problems and ideological differences that needs to be ironed out before you go for each other’s throat. Research on the matter have revealed that for most couples, long identified problems that were likely to be volatile, years ago before the issue manifested itself into a crisis, leading to domestic violence.
They were able to tell that the aggressive nature of their spouses when addressing a small issue, would in the long run, become a problem, but they turned a blind eye to it. Even the love-smitten guy, who would swear violently at her girlfriend at the slightest provocation, turned out to be a killer. If anything it is up to the individual to pick up the signs of an abusive partner before, it gets to something really serious.
We often come across friends, relatives and church mates, giving out horrendous details on how they were almost strangled to death by their partners, only to be saved by a passer-by. They will still continue with the same relationship, arguing that their abusive partner offered apologies and promised not to do it again.
If you were to follow their situation closely, you will find that these are the very same people, who were later battered to death or maimed after the longstanding dispute degenerated into a brawl. While there may not be clear reasons on what triggers domestic violence, sometimes it may start when one partner feels the need to control and dominate the other. Abusers may feel this need to control their partner because of low self-esteem, extreme jealousy, difficulties in regulating anger and other strong emotions, or when they feel inferior to the other partner in education and socio-economic background.
Some men with traditional beliefs may think they have the right to control women and that women, aren’t equal to men. This domination then takes the form of emotional, physical or sexual abuse. Studies suggest that violent behaviour often is caused by an interaction of situational and individual factors.
That means abusers learn violent behaviour from their family, people in their community and other cultural influences as they grow up.
They may have seen violence often or they may have been victims themselves. Children who witness or are the victims of violence may learn to believe that violence is a reasonable way to resolve conflict between people.
It is up to an individual, to assess their own relationships and see if it is safe for them to continue with that liaison. But there are instances where society may need to advise people to seek help when there are in a violent relationship.
Sadly though, while we are talking about violence, people should remember that it is not men who are perpetrators of this heinous act, but women have also joined in the league of abusers. There are some sections of society that think women who are victims and men are perpetrators. That’s clearly not true, people need to acknowledge that there are a lot of men who are living in abusive relationships, and unfortunately for them, the world continues to turn a blind eye to their plight.
Only a few have come out in the open, to talk about the abuse they endure from their women, which range from emotional, psychological and physical abuse.
It is exactly this stereotype that leads to battered men hiding in shame, fearful of being ridiculed, or even prosecuted, if the woman decides to be malicious and
claim that they walloped the man in self-defence.
Violence takes many forms, but each one of them is as bad as the next and needs to be stopped forthwith.
There is nothing as dehumanising as living in an abusive relationship, you lose your self-esteem, you blame yourself for having invited the abuse on yourself, and better still society will apportion the blame on you if they see you with a black eye, the next day.
Online Reporter