A CONVERSATION WE MUST HAVE

Sir,

Abuse survivors are most times depicted as lying, manipulative and looking to ‘settle a score’. So what does it take for a woman to be believed, really? The unwillingness to believe a man’s allegedly abusive behaviour is at odds with the overwhelming number of women lying in hospital beds after being assaulted by their spouses. Their evidence and experiences of abuse are repeatedly dismissed as a fuss over nothing.

Reactions

Reactions are usually a mix of victim blaming; ‘‘I wonder what she did to provoke him’’ or ‘she was wearing that dress? She was definitely asking for it!’ and the defensive, ‘he had just gone through a hard time, cut him some slack’. And when the victim eventually dies at the hands of her abuser, then we start believing that he was abusive. Is this how far domestic violence needs to escalate before we deem it as ‘real’ or worthy of condemnation? The unwillingness to believe that a friend, relative or someone we admire is capable of abuse is usually centered on how ‘he doesn’t look like an abuser’. What exactly does an abuser look like? That all abusers are vicious monsters is a harmful myth that should come to a rest. Friends of the abuser keep echoing erroneous sentiments; ‘‘I’ve known him for years, he’s a good friend!’’ The idea that someone can be a good friend and be abusive, is too much for some people to wrap their minds around.

Undermine

These are just subtle attempts to undermine the victim’s story with their own, that because the abuser is kind or ‘good’ to his friends, he can’t be abusive to his partner or other people. People need to understand that violent behaviour can exist in one relationship and not in another. It neither has any bearing on the other. One in three girls experience violence in the country before they even reach the age of 18, one in five will experience violence throughout their lives. Most of these go unreported for many reasons. We talk about these statistics every day, yet when a woman comes forward, we dismiss her claims. Victim blaming is normalised to alarming extents in our culture and the stunning ignorance is the crafty nature of abuse. We do not want to talk about how a beloved public figure or a respectable man in the community might be capable of abuse. But this is a conversation we must have. We need to stop talking about what women do to men to deserve to be killed - even as I wrote this, it sounded ridiculous – and start talking about what makes men think it is okay to resort to violence when the Constitution of Eswatini and the Bible we all claim to love, condemn the taking of another’s life.

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