Nicaragua's culture of home abuse

panafrica · Nov 25, 2005

Domestic violence is widespread in Nicaragua, where it is often tolerated by the victims - mostly women and children - who accept it as part of the local machista culture. The entire notion of "domestic violence" is barely recognised in that beautiful little country. Whenever I raised the subject the same word was used - "normal".

And popular entertainment reflects that normality: one of the favourite forms of music - ranchera - customarily celebrates the machismo culture in which Nicaraguan children are raised.

The male singers boast of the typical male dominance which encourages boys to grow up seeing themselves as superior and girls to be submissive.

So wife-beating is common. And because children are seen as property, child sexual abuse is also common.

And there is another element characteristic of Nicaraguan society: secrecy.
The unwillingness to openly accept the high incidence of abusive behaviour, almost all of it by men against women and children, means that violence and discrimination are tolerated - by the perpetrators and their victims.

I'm not exaggerating. A young father, Oswald Montoya, told me how hard it is to bring his son and daughter up differently.

"It's a constant challenge. For instance, when educating children it's very common to use corporal punishment - and I think that is violence!

"So children get the idea that the one who is taller and stronger can hit the smaller ones. And as for the issue of adults versus children - this is a very 'adultist' society."

Of course, many adults are living with the consequences of having been abused. One woman spoke of her relationship with her mother.

"After five years of therapy, I think I've managed to understand her a bit - why she reacted the way she did to my grandfather sexually abusing me.

"Initially, I hated my mother for not believing me. She'd been abused by the same person so she should have believed me.

"Now I understand that her attitude came from having been abused herself - the fear of confronting the problem."

There are therapists in Nicaragua who are very familiar with that kind of story.

Lorna Norori specializes in child sexual abuse.

She told me: "When a man abuses a child, he'll say: 'The worms are going to get her eventually. Better a human eats her than a worm. I'm human, and moreover she's mine - nobody else's. I can do what I want with her'."

Ms Norori does not accept that argument for a moment.

"Sexual abusers are always described as 'ill', 'paranoid', 'psychotic'. But they're not.

"And I can't justify their behaviour by saying that they were necessarily victims of abuse in their own childhood, because if that were the case, you'd have many more women sexually abusing, and that's not true either.

"Effectively, what the sexual abuser wants is to exercise power, with a sexual element."

But are the institutions which have maintained the machismo culture ever since the Sandinista revolution overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 beginning to change how they manage society in Nicaragua?

There is now an ombudsman for human rights, Norma Moreno. Her role was reluctantly accepted by the executive as a trade-off for an external debt-pardon, and as a child of the revolution she refuses to be cowed by the resistance to her attempts to establish a meaningful human rights constitutional framework.

"When I make a denunciation, it's never received with sympathy by the civil servants. But recently I denounced a case of sexual abuse in a government-run school.

"The Ministry for Education wanted to use an administrative decree to transfer the teacher to another school.

"I requested that the abuser be put at the disposition of a judge immediately - otherwise the ministry would be acting as an accomplice to the crime. So the ministry felt obliged to reverse the abuse of human rights that they had committed."

Norma won that fight. But she is still battling to have human rights incorporated in the educational curriculum.

Rodrigo Alvarez of the Ministry for Education is proud of the new Education for Life programme, but recognises the scale of the challenge to change Nicaraguan culture.

"That's why we're working on a new school regulation, where everybody will understand that we have zero tolerance for people who abuse kids, especially within the schools."

Cardinal Miguel Obando Y Bravo was Archbishop of Managua for 35 years and now runs the Roman Catholic university there - Unica. He blamed domestic violence on poverty and lack of education. I queried this.

Violence and abuse are manifest through society.

He replied thus: 'When I meet with professional friends, I sometimes joke with them and I ask: "Who's the boss in your house?" The man tells me, "It's my wife." I say, "Do you have the last word?" The man says, "I do - but it's 'yes, ma'am'!"

Men take a stand

The big societal institutions are rushing to change the culture that tolerates violence - but some individuals are.

Xavier Munoz is president of the Association of Men against Violence.

Some years ago he and a few colleagues realized that women were dying and men were becoming lonely and isolated because of the violent culture.

One of his members told me: "When my wife got out of control, the mechanism that I had seen and learned was to use violence to get what I wanted."

Now Mr Munoz' association use a method called "popular education", learned during the revolution.

"It concentrates on getting men to talk about their lives and what problems they've had.

"We start with their own experience, but we also try to give them a vision of how they could change life for themselves and their families."

If institutions are reluctant to change their practices, codes and no-go areas, one must rely on bottom-up grass-roots initiatives.

I saw these and met independent, brave women and men.

If modern Nicaragua was forged in the heat of a revolution, then perhaps it is experienced enough to tackle domestic violence now.

Machismo need not dominate society forever, if individuals are committed to a fair and equal society.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4468396.stm

panafrica · Nov 25, 2005

Spain hits back at abuse culture

In Spain, the fight against domestic violence has become one of the new government's key priorities, with policies designed to tackle abusers head on.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has made fighting domestic violence his main priority after terrorism.

Soledad Murillo, Spain's Secretary of State for Women's Affairs, told Everywoman the laws had been fashioned in response to what victims had said they needed.

"Women's groups were instrumental in deciding this new law, which makes the judicial process more effective," she said.

"It gives police and social services more power to stop the suspected aggressor; it gives more power to those who come into contact with the victims of violence, so that they feel less alone.

"This is a law designed by women, for women."

Property of men

Although statistics for domestic violence are not worse in Spain than anywhere else in Europe, it is only recently that Spaniards have started talking about the abuse.

During the Franco dictatorship, a woman was considered the legal property of a man, and domestic violence was not considered a criminal offence. One traditional Spanish saying is: "I hit her because she is mine".

Although modern Spain is more liberal, violence remains a problem - and it is this that has caused the Spanish government to act.

"If I woke him in the morning, he beat me; if he woke me while I was sleeping, he raped me," Fidella Ramiron (not her real name) - told Everywoman.

"I preferred to wake him."

Ms Ramiron has been in hiding from her abusive husband for 20 years.

She described her injuries, saying she was usually covered in bruises, especially around her eyes.

"He was always hitting me," she added. "I never knew what for. It didn't matter."

And she added that she felt she had been failed by the Spanish system.

"I can never use my real name," she added.

"I can't go back to where my daughter was born, in case he can find me. That's what I don't understand. I'm the one being punished, having to remain hidden from him forever. I just want him to go to prison for what he's done. That's all I want."

But others feel that simply toughening the law is not enough.

Dr Marian diSadi, a doctor at an emergency ward in a Madrid hospital, stressed that it was also important that attitudes were changed.

"We doctors feel very frustrated," she said. "We can't help the victims of domestic violence who often don't want to report their partners.

"We can treat them physically, but it's very hard to separate the victim from her man. It's hard, and a painful journey."

Changing attitudes

Much of Mr Zapatero's early legislation has focused on making equality an emblem of his period in office. Among the new laws has been the introduction of equality classes into all state schools. He has also selected as many women in his government as men.

Meanwhile, the success of the award-winning Spanish film Te Doy Mis Ojos (Take My Eyes) - which has domestic violence as its central subject - has indicated that the attitude towards women is now changing fast, especially among the young.

"We have realised we have this problem now," says the film's director Iciar Bollain.

"I guess we are late with many things relative to Europe. There was a long period during Franco when this was private business, and nobody could interfere.

"There was the heavy weight of the church, saying 'women, stay with your man and keep going, whatever happens'."

But Luis Tosar, the film's male star, added that it would take a long time before the attitude of some Spanish men would be completely changed.

"We have traditions that go back centuries," he said.

"Spain has always been that way. The concept of the man being macho, head of the family, is still very much the way it is here. I think we are in a process of change that will take quite some time."

Ms Bollain said that she agreed. "It's in our saints, it's in our songs, it's in our jokes - if a man kills a woman, you still hear a comments that she must have done something to him.

"Justification for violence against women is so deep in our culture."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3995909.stm

panafrica · Nov 25, 2005

Some Turkish women 'back beating'

More than a third of Turkish women believe they deserve to be beaten if they argue with their husbands or deny them sex, according to a new survey. The poll of 8,075 married women by Ankara's Hacettepe University revealed that 39% thought domestic violence was justified in certain circumstances.

In rural areas, 57% said their spouses were right to beat them, the study funded by the EU and Turkey showed.

The EU, which Turkey seeks to join, has urged Ankara to improve women's rights.

Last month, the Turkish parliament approved legal reforms including heavier punishments for assaults on women, the recognition of rape in marriage and life terms for perpetrators of "honour killings".

But Kirsty Hughes, visiting fellow of the European Institute of the London School of Economics, told BBC News Online that "laws don't change attitudes overnight".

"Turkey is a conservative, patriarchal society that is changing and needs to change more - which is why so many in Turkey are keen to join the EU," she added.

Key problem

In the poll, women said domestic violence was justified if they argued with their husband, if they spent too much or neglected the children, the Anatolia news agency reports.

Correspondents say Turkish women enjoy greater freedoms than those in many other Muslim nations.

For decades, they have had the right to vote, access to education, the right to divorce and the right to abortion.

But violence is frequently cited as a key problem by Western non-governmental organisations.

A recent report by Amnesty International estimated that at least one third of Turkish women are victims of domestic violence in which they are "hit, raped and, in some cases, killed or forced to commit suicide".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3944983.stm

Dual Karnayn · Nov 25, 2005

PanAfrica

Thanks for showing that domestic violence and abuse of women cuts across all racial, cultural, and religious lines.

There are some (mostly conservative white christians) who want to portray themselves as the only "ideal" men that know how to treat women.
Every other male and his culture is demonized.

I suspect alcohol and poverty is behind most cases of domestic violence.

militant · Nov 26, 2005

Dual Karnayn said:

PanAfrica

Thanks for showing that domestic violence and abuse of women cuts across all racial, cultural, and religious lines.

There are some (mostly conservative white christians) who want to portray themselves as the only "ideal" men that know how to treat women.
Every other male and his culture is demonized.

I suspect alcohol and poverty is behind most cases of domestic violence.

Thanks Bro Pan. You are always enlightening. Hmmm...Just a question to you, Dual Karnayn. Why not blame it on culture? At least we are quick to blame African rapes on backwards African practices in serious need of westernization and updating. I guess my point is I have been going around looking at how people react to crimes committed by two different races, and the pronouncements tend to be different for two different races. Blaming it on Alchohol or poverty is a convenient excuse, when the same and probably valid excuse is not afforded to say Africans committing the same crime.