Confronting Domestic Violence

By Dion Evans, Religion Editor What does Domestic Violence look like?  As shared in an earlier column, many experts believe it to be an issue of one seeking power and control over the life of another person who is a “love interest” or a spouse.  Here is the face ofr domestic violence in the form of a survivor’s testimony. “(It) Started when I was 18 years old,” said the woman who I will call Shaunte.  “We already knew each other, got into a relationship, but that was the part of him I had never met.” Notice how she begins to compartmentalize: there is the person she knows, and within the same individual, is a person she has “never met.” “Not sure what the real trigger was, but the next thing I know I was hit. So my reaction was to hit back – so, I did, ” she said. Notice, she was not going to take being hit without a strong counter reaction of hitting back. However, does this help if this is all that is done?  Should she have called the authorities to receive proper help?  Do the authorities or courts offer ‘proper help?’ This event took place in front of her two-year-old son who had to watch her struggle to get off the floor.  To make matters worse, she had just found out that day she was pregnant.  Surely the assault would cause her to leave the relationship? She goes on to testify: “The abuse continued through my entire pregnancy. I was beat with a mop stick, slapped on each cheek until swollen and hit in the stomach with a telephone.”   Is anyone asking: Why did you stay? Why didn’t you call the police? And surely there were the other people to stop this violence.  Surely someone had to hear it? Yes!  Neighbors heard it!  Friends and family knew about it or at least had their suspicions. The pre-school teachers and administrator knew what was going on.  Most of all, she knew what was going on.  So why didn’t anyone do anything?  In a domestically violent relationship, the perpetrator has power and control over the victim and the victim’s circle.  Where is the church? When the children started acting out disobediently and in violent ways, where was the church in the community?  When the bruises could no longer be covered up with make-up, where was the church in the community?  When the screams rang out in the hallways and corridors of the apartment building –  “Stop hitting me, I’m pregnant. You’re hurting me.  Stop!” – where was the church in the community? There is much more to this testimony. We will come back to it next week.  But here is a question to ponder.  What role has the church played in providing proper help?  According to Vanessa Oden, a domestic violence specialist, there are more animal shelters for abandoned and abused animals in America than there are women’s shelters for abused and battered women. Each of us has to decide:  are we bystanders who hear no evil, see no evil and report no evil. Or are we ready to engage the perpetrators and the victims, to ensure such acts are no more?