Intimate Violence

Can we just rubbish the Domestic Relations Bill because it’s trying to create a rift between husbands and wives? Or maybe because it’s trying to launder our dirty linen in public? All those things that happen behind closed doors? Maybe it’s because some of us do not want to have a balance in our relationships? Because God said man is the head of the family? But was he saying domination and suppression came hand in hand with heading one’s family?

  Some people still refute the fact that marital rape does exist. They claim. “If the church says you are one (man and wife become one) then how can you rape yourself?” Total rubbish I say, it’s prejudicial against women and even men who are victims of violence in marriage, sexual or physical and this ignorance of the complexity of issues implicit in these silent crimes have not only perpetuated human rights violation but enhanced the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, death, mental illness and carried on the gendering of society.

“Just a mere slap” is a notion that should be eradicated. It voices the thinking of those who condone domestic violence or intimate violence. Why should it be a mere slap? A slap is a slap. Doesn’t it cause physical harm? Why should another person be treated as a cow? And yet our friends in the western world accord rights to their animals as well!

No form of violence against women, wives, girlfriends or daughters, sons, brothers or husbands should be acceptable behavior. We must de-construct these myths that support violence directly or indirectly starting with not just the justice personnel but we as person’s in our intimate relations.

I know some of us may wonder what intimate violence is but just like domestic violence, “ it is those acts that are committed in the domestic sphere and include physical, emotional and sexual violence threatened or actual. “ This may sound like a mouth full but no one must ever allow that they “had it coming” nor “deserve it” this is what Uganda’s  feminist Dr Sylvia Tamale would call “B. S ” and I gladly concede with this opinion when looking at society’s tolerance for intimate violence.

However this comes as no surprise, especially with the number of uneducated women in Uganda still large but having abundant cultural education which most times and in a society like Uganda has promoted gendering of society. It’s no surprise at all that the battered partner especially if female will continue to stay in this situation because she has been schooled to believe that a woman must endure all in marriage. “if your grandmother, mother also endured this who are you to launder your dirty linen in public”

This perpetuation of intimate violence is due to stereo type thinking, not only among the partners in these relationships but also among law enforcement officers. Ever heard a police man say that is a domestic issue? Well I have and I pray you never do because when they say that they are most certainly referring to a battery charge between partners in an intimate relationship.

This acceptance of intimate violence although has been left to inaccessibility to legal services, gender discriminative laws the biggest perpetuators are the social cultural factors e.g. the Patriarchal cultural value system  and power relations at the house hold level that prevent discussions of violence at an intimate level being discussed in the public sphere.

          Certified

J.P.Orogot