BackThe social factors that shackle victims of domestic violence
To onlookers, it seems simple: if a woman suffers domestic abuse, she should just quit the relationship. But it is not so simple as it seems
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New Delhi: Even though they had been in a relationship for close to seven years, she wasn’t thrilled when he proposed to her. They were in love. He wanted to marry her and, yet, she hesitated. She thought maybe all relationships are like that. Maybe that’s how all men behave. Maybe he’s stressed at work. Maybe he won’t beat her after they are married. And, so, the woman, now 29, said yes.
Two days after they got married, she got into an argument with her mother-in-law, following which he barged into their bedroom, held her face in his hands and squeezed it till she screamed. As she tried to free herself from his hold, she looked at the mehndi on her hands, and started crying again. “That moment, something inside me died. I knew I was stuck," she recalls.
Violence became the norm. Verbal abuse aside, every week or 10 days, he beat her up. He spat on her, tried stuffing a hand towel inside her mouth and kicked her several times. Once, while she was sleeping, he dragged her off the bed and dropped her on the floor. One day, he locked her inside the house for the whole day till he returned from work, and on another day, he tried to smother her with a pillow.
When she married him, she was working as an air-hostess and he had a transferable job. Both were educated and came from financially sound families. The fact that he beat her up during their courtship should have been reason enough for her to end the relationship. Instead, she married him.
To onlookers, it seems simple: if a woman is being abused, she should just get up and leave.
Yet, worldwide, one-third of all women have been victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. Around 113,403 cases of cruelty by husbands and relatives have been reported across India in 2015, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau report. And this doesn’t take into account the fact that domestic violence remains one of the most under-reported crimes in India, often because the perpetrator is the husband or partner himself.
Take, for instance, the case of TV actress Pratyusha Banerjee, who committed suicide in April. According to her parents’ statement to the police, her boyfriend Rahul Raj Singh, who has been charged with abetment of suicide, assault and intimidation following Banerjee’s death, had taken “complete control of her life, and used to beat and abuse her often". Singh has denied the allegations.
When we think of domestic abuse victims, we tend to imagine women from the lower economic strata, someone who is financially dependent on her partner. But all too often, an incident breaks the stereotype and questions like why women stay in abusive relationships start cropping up. Feminists argue that asking this question is a subtle way of blaming victims and assuming that every domestic violence victim has options. Instead, the question should be: what social factors constrain women from leaving?
Collapsing support systems
“When you get divorced, social support systems start shrinking. You are told it is your problem. Being in an abusive relationship sounds better to them than dealing with all the practical problems associated with being single," says L.N. Suman, professor of clinical psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health And Neurosciences in Bengaluru.
The woman had got married against her family’s wishes. They had warned her that she was settling for someone less than what she deserved. How could she go back and tell them they were right, she thought.
“The failure of a relationship is seen as a personal failure. There is a complete mismatch of expectations. We don’t live in vacuum. We keep thinking about what society will say. Society unfortunately decides what options are available. There is nothing like a free choice; it is conditioned by many things. It’s not just this one thing—walking out. It is a series of things that follows that one decision," says Suman.
“As a person, it is very difficult to invest in anyone," says the woman. “But if I do, it is very difficult to detach myself. It feels almost as if I will lose a part of myself."
But the problem wasn’t just detaching herself from him. She worried that a divorce would attach stigma to her family.
In India, society is conditioned to save the marriage at all costs, the proof of which is seen even in several court judgments glorifying the solemnity and sanctity of marriage.
As the violence in her marriage escalated and he forbade her from talking to neighbours and forced her to cut ties with her friends and relatives, she realized that apart from her immediate family, she knew no one other than his friends.
He believed that he belonged to an elite family and she was a do kodi ki air-hostess jo muft ka khaana kha rahi hai (a two-bit airhostess who was living off him). “He forced me to quit my job and made me so dependent on him that I had nowhere to go," she says.
Author Rashmi Anand, who counsels domestic abuse survivors, herself walked out of an abusive marriage after 10 years.
“It is never easy. You keep waiting for the right moment. When you have children, it becomes all the more difficult, but once the relationship starts harming the child, that is when you decide to walk out. But it’s never easy. Where do you go if he has made you completely dependent on him? For me, survival was the biggest challenge. We had no funds, no support," says Anand.
Even though the 29-year-old’s family was more or less supportive, in many cases, parents distance themselves because “what will the world say?" Shelters available for women in distress are often in a bad condition and not meant for women of financial privilege.
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The Special Police Unit for Women and Children’s website lists seven shelters and six short-stay homes in Delhi. Together, all of these can accommodate at the most 238 women.
Hope for change
For someone who doesn’t know her history, it will be very hard to imagine her as a victim. She is smart, confident and has sharp features. Her mouth breaks easily into a smile, and she looks calm and composed. As one of her neighbours, on hearing her screams, had once told her: “You are a Delhi girl who knows your rights. Why are you tolerating this?" She says it’s easy to pass judgement on women who stay. “It is a darkness you get sucked into. It drains you. You try doing everything to make things right because you have hope," she says.
Supreme Court senior advocate Geeta Luthra says abuse in a relationship is never constant. There are days when things are back to normal, and most women draw hope from those days. “You are so used to living with them that you get used to getting abused too. You keep hoping it won’t happen again and all this becomes a way of life," says Luthra.
Lenore E. Walker, an American psychologist and founder of the Domestic Violence Institute, refers to the cycle of abuse. After interviewing 1,500 women who had been in abusive relationships, she discovered patterns in their experiences and broke them down into four broad stages.
The first or “tension building" stage is when the relationship becomes stressed. This is followed by physical and emotional abuse or what she calls the “acting out" stage. The “honeymoon" stage is when the abuser apologizes or makes it seem that he is contrite, but almost inevitably, the cycle of abuse repeats itself, leading to an escalated situation where victims feel trapped.
For the former air-hostess, there were days when her husband would take her out to dinner, a movie, walks. Those days were few, but she decided to cling to them.
Promise of change and apologies
“It is difficult to break the cycle. You keep on looking for reasons to continue. My clients keep saying let me give him another chance... I promise this will be the last chance," says Rekha Aggarwal, a Supreme Court advocate with 30 years’ experience, who is also a mediator at the Delhi Mediation Centre, a place where people can go to resolve their disputes without approaching the court.
Once, after beating her up, he stopped suddenly and said: “Oh my god, I have become my father." His father and grandfather had also beaten their wives and the family believed that women were subordinates. “I wanted to help him and pull him out of this," she says. She thought he needed help; he kept blaming her for the fights. She suggested counselling, he didn’t agree.
ALSO READ | Why women continue in abusive relationships
Social beliefs typically associate women as saviours of relationships.
When the woman told her brother about the abuse, he asked: “What did you do to make him react in this way?" Nobody believed her. Adjust; all relationships go through these phases, she was told. Going back to the same family with whom she fought to marry this man, seemed impossible.
The limitations of leaving can be both psychological and physical. Many rationalize their situation. Some end up blaming themselves for the abusive behaviour of their partners. They convince themselves if they approach the person differently, maybe they won’t be abused.
“Initially, I cried when he shouted. Then I started arguing back. If he shouted, I shouted back. But then I thought maybe it’s me who brings out the worst in him. Then for a long time, I decided not to respond. I went completely quiet. Instead of appreciating that, he thought this silence was a conspiracy I and my family were hatching against him," she says. “I was looking for validation in his eyes. I was made to believe that I got beaten because of something I was doing."
Luthra says most people are used to living with someone—family, friends, husband, wife. “The whole ethos of being independent, walking out doesn’t come easy to anyone, particularly women. And in the times we are living in, it is very difficult to be a single parent. Your career and socializing takes a hit. Even finding a house of your own is a challenge," she adds.
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Getting out of a relationship also requires going to the courts—which again can be traumatic if the divorce is not a mutually agreed one. Luthra remembers an incident when a client came to her asking how long the alimony and financial settlement would take. Such cases can take decades if not by mutual consent.
“In a six-year relationship, he had abused her 10-20 times. She walked away saying I will rather tolerate this intermittent abuse, than have no place to go to and no money to live," says Luthra.
ALSO READ | No safe havens for victims of domestic violence
The former air-hostess does not have a job yet, but luckily for her, she can bank on her family for support. Until a few months ago, she was trying to hold on to the last strands of her relationship, but now she says she can see things clearly: the abuse will not stop. Now, she says, there is no shame in being abused and it’s not her fault that the marriage didn’t work. Not many are that lucky.
This is the last of a multi-part series which looks at the landmark Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act to examine how it protects and grants relief to victims of domestic violence.
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