this is where public education must come into place. if one
feels that he or she is a victim of physical or psychological
abuse, he or she must be aware that some avenues or places where he
or she can seek help.
even if they do not know where to seek help, friends
and family must also play a part. for example if one day i see my
sister being very troubled and with physical scarring, as
her brother, i must be her voice to seek protection and
redress even if she have no courage to do so. likewise for
friends... public education plays an important role.
sometimes we just have to pay a little bit more attention to
things and people around us and we might just be able to prevent a
major mishap from happening...
The theory is nice. The reality is different. Short of YOU
forcing your sister to go to the police against her will, they will
not seek help. Yes, that IS the reality of most victims of
psychological abuse, they get to a point where they will refuse to
seek legal redress out of sheer terror until it's too late (i.e.
martial rape happens).
Seems most of you are able to understand seeking redress in
theory, but how many of you have experience of real life cases? If
you do, you'll know that majority of the victims simply cannot be
identified at the "prevention" stage because the reality is that
they live in such terror they will not willingly identify
themselves. And if you wish me to delve further into the mindsets
of such victims, which I am able to do and will happily do so in
order to further educate and inform, then here it is: Many victims
also develop a sense of irrational shame and will engage in massive
effort to make sure that their marriage appears normal on the
surface. This sort of mindset is apparent in a wide variety of
abuse victims, and has made identifying potential victims of
martial rape very very difficult.
Another point: It's nice to talk about prevention, but what
about current existing victims? Seeing the perp put away for
another crime means some, if not many victims won't get the closure
they seek. Often the purpose of convicting a criminal serves as
much as an acknowledgement by society of the injustice the victims
suffer. If you let the errant husband be convicted of a "lesser"
crime there is a high chance the victims will be left damaged and
unable to move on for life. Theres a specific reason why rapists
aren't charged with assault.
Anyways like I said, the needs of existing actual victims should
outweight the needs of non-existing hypothetical victims. Knowing
the cruel realities of domestic abuse of women, I have to say
that all the current laws simply do not do enough to address the
victim's right to justice.
