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| Sunday, 13 July 2003 |
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Home truths about violence against women by Jayanthi Liyanage "Is it right to interfere in an argument a husband and wife have in the privacy of their home? Is it right to intrude into the sacredness of the family unit?" This still-raised question, despite years of attempts by women activists and social scientists to dispel "the mythology of the impenetrable family", came up once again, in the puzzled voice of an eminent male lawyer. The forum was the lecture on "Criminal justice system, human rights and violence" by Justice Shiranee Tilakawardane, President, Court of Appeal, in the third of the lecture series organised by the National Committee of Women of the Ministry of Women's Affairs. Stunning impact As a woman who had surmounted overwhelming gender barriers to score quite a few firsts for women in the judiciary, Justice Tilakawardane's answer, when it came in measured but brilliant reasoning, was stunning in its impact. "Do you know what a young girl in the USA, who had shot her father because he tried to molest her sister after raping her on previous occasions, had said?." She asked the audience and quoted the girl. "Justice, in our country, even to keep a dog, one needs a licence. But to become a parent, one doesn't need a licence." After such an answer, one need not explain any further. Its pathos cut far too deep than any words can. Justice Tilakawardane softened her answer by adding, "It is only now that many such families are receiving a breath of fresh air and what is revealed is badly-beaten women and badly-beaten children. If a family becomes a breeding ground of violence, isn't it far better that the family is dismantled rather than let it touch the rest of society with violence?" Further analysis With this rather disturbing thought, the ground was set for a further analysis of violence of a country which has one of the world's highest incidence of domestic violence. The way violence manifests in cyclic order is indicated in studies which reveal that 85 per cent of those apprehended in committing violence originate from homes condoning and engaged in domestic violence. "When the father abuses the mother, the son takes the cue and abuses his wife," said Justice Tilakawardane. "The pattern spreads to the grandson for whom it becomes natural to abuse his own wife. Occasionally, you have the woman abusing the man. Almost all criminals are found to have been abused as children." Where exactly lie the clue to the elusive "non-violence"? For those who harbour the mis-notion that sexual violence is the creation of the urban polluted, the local police data cry otherwise, with the North Central Province recording the highest number of cases of sexual abuse of women and children. Foundations of violence can be discovered in our own servile attitude to the numerous discriminations experienced at different levels of society. "Ours is a society which criminalises politics and politicises criminality, and, we, as citizens, are not exercising change to stop politicians and others who enjoy the power of impunity and condone discrimination. Discrimination Add to that, our civil society safeguards such as religion and professional buttresses are inefficient and we only have punitive action, instead of reformative or deterrent theory," Justice Tilakawardane pointed out. "Changing attitudes towards discrimination is the key to changing society. Discrimination leads to inequality. Exercising equality is the only way to eradicate violence." As the mechanism called "society" operates on a natural tendency to stratify in a social context, if we are to exercise tangibly-felt "substantive" equality, as against "formal" equality provided for in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, the need to painstakingly remove biases of gender, race and many others, subtly or flagrantly operating at all social levels, becomes a must. In clearing the way for one's own equality at home, street, work place and in the social hideouts of "sceptical and patriarchal doubting Thomases", women of Sri Lanka should be heartened on three accounts. One is that Sri Lanka is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), having ratified and adopted it. Two is the equality provision enshrined in the Constitution. Three is the sexual harassment clause in the local Penal Code. What is not done adequately in the larger society, thus dispersing discrimination all round, is to translate the human rights constitutionally guaranteed to women. If a single woman, dressed in a mini skirt, happens to come out of a city restaurant in the wee hours of the morning and accepts a ride offered to her by a motorist to the hotel where she is staying while on vacation from her studies abroad, think before you start looking smug on hearing that she had filed a rape action against the motorist. The country's Constitution protects her freedom of movement at all times and her freedom to express herself in many ways, of which her dress is but one. Culminating all these rights is her right to say an emphatic "No!" to rape, abuse or sexual harassment - be it verbal, physical or psychological. This becomes, in fact, the apex of exercising the equality of humans and the right of the female to be free from discrimination. At the close of Justice Tilakawardane's magnificent delivery of the causes of violence, I had only one thought. That is, if the crystal-clear thought process that she stimulated in us on eradication of violence could be conveyed to the masses, what wonders it might perform in triggering attitudinal changes. She earned thought-provoking input from a very appreciative audience, specially from a young woman who spoke at length of the 'gender biases task forces,' which, operating in the USA, were helpful in removing many forms of gender biases, even from the judicial process. The state needs to prioritise such interventions and set aside funds to make optimum use of them. |
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