As a shocking EU study shows a third of women have been physically or sexually assaulted, Dina Rickman speaks to a man who punched his wife, and finds out about UK programmes helping abusive men reform
Violence against women: men who abuse their partners can get help Photo: Getty Images
Violence against women is widespread across Europe – so much so that one
in three women in the EU have suffered a physical or sexual assault since
the age of 15. One in 20 women has also been raped, according to
research by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, and one in 10 women has
experienced some form of sexual violence.
The statistics are frightening. They show just over one in five women have
experienced physical and/or sexual violence from either a current or
previous partner – but only 67 per cent of victims report those crimes. The
FRA even called it
a “picture of extensive abuse that affects many women's lives, but is
systematically under-reported to the authorities.”
Domestic violence is a growing problem in the UK, as one in four women will
experience it at some point in their lives. But, just who are these people
committing violence against women? Who are these 'partners' who raise their
fists again vulnerable women?
Jack* is one of them.
Before he hurt his wife, he used to be a policeman and got a lot of calls
about domestic violence. “I saw women beaten black and blue. No, not black
and blue. Red and raw,” he says. He had nothing but “disgust, anger and
hatred” for their abusers.
Jack has always had a temper. He used to use it to his advantage when he
played rugby. He knows he can be aggressive. But he never thought he’d use
his temper on someone he loved. Now 40, Jack is telling me his story almost
“five years to the day” after it happened.
His voice is quiet, but I can hear the horror in it. He says it was a routine
argument with his wife after a bad day at work. Then he snapped: "I
threw her onto the settee on her back, jumped on top of her and punched her
in the face. Then we both just stood in the room and we didn't say anything
for a minute or two. And at that point I said 'I've got to do something
about this.'”
Before the incident Jack had been increasingly aggressive with his wife, and
once he’d hit her, he knew he could do it again.
"Once I’d done it I was 100 per cent afraid that I'd do it again. Once you've
done it you know you're capable. Having done it, that situation could happen
again. That's why I was desperate to get some help…I should have been strong
enough to not let it happen,” he tells me.
But how did it get to that point in the first place? I've always wanted to
understand those moments before and what goes through a man's mind just
before he hits his loved one.
“What had happened is I'd had a really bad day at work, I was coming home and
I wanted to talk to my wife about my bad day. I felt like she wasn't
listening to me," he explains.
"I got home from work already in a mood. I was upset because I hadn't been
able to share my frustrations of the day with my wife. We got into a row
about how I wasn't able to talk to her about what had happened at work. Then
I just snapped."
He thinks part of the reason that he was so repulsed by what he had done was
because of his police work: “Before I did it I was really angry and after
was the reason I then decided to contact a group. I couldn't believe that
I'd done what I'd done. I was in shock.
"Immediately afterwards I just knew that could not happen again. I had an
instant reaction to what happened. I didn't know what to do and I asked my
wife at the time. We talked about what had happened. I think we both
acknowledged that as a couple we needed some help, I needed more help than
she did."
Jack did do something about it, completing a six-month programme for male
perpetrators of domestic violence before moving on to a follow-up group,
which met monthly for the rest of the year. He hasn’t hit his wife since and
has gone back to the follow-up group when he felt like he was getting out of
control.
His wife has stayed with him and interestingly she initially had an adverse
reaction to him seeking help. “My wife was so embarrassed for me she didn't
want me to go on the course, she didn't want me to go through what I went
through, because she knew how much it would hurt me. She's never said she
would leave me. It's bizarre, considering how I've treated her.”
There are a handful of such specialised programmes around the country. Men can
self-refer, like Jack did, or be asked to attend, normally as a condition of
their probation or by the family courts.
Most programmes use a mixture of therapeutic techniques to treat abusers and
are accredited by Respect,
Britain’s biggest domestic violence charity focusing on
perpetrators. Respect’s groups are for male abusers, for the simple reason
that men are much more likely to be violent towards their partners than
women are, but they also run a hotline for male victims of domestic violence
and for female perpetrators.
Violence as a habit
The philosophy behind Respect and the programmes it accredits centres around
the belief that domestic abusers can change and that violence - like
smoking, or drinking - is a habit which can be broken.
It’s a radical approach, but it works. Colin Fitzgerald, Respect’s membership
manager, says their research shows between 65 - 75 per cent of men who
complete one of their accredited programs stop using violence. Fitzgerald
practices what he preaches, running a weekly group for male abusers as well
as co-ordinating groups around the country. “What these programs are good
at”, he stresses, “is protecting women and children”.
To protect women and children, you have to make abusers change. Without that,
says Respect’s chief executive Jo Todd, “you're just sticking a plaster on a
very big wound”.
But getting men to confront why they hit their partners is easier said than
done: “I could go to a group with 12 guys tonight and say to them, do you
think it’s OK to use violence against your partner? They’re all going to
tell me, no, it’s not OK. But the reason they’ll all be in that room is
because they’ve used violence and abuse against their partner,"
Fitzgerald tells me.
“What they really mean is, no, it’s not OK to use violence against your
partner unless.... Unless she goes out in a short skirt, or unless she said
she’d be home by midnight and she comes home at 3am. Or unless she shouts at
me and she makes me feel bad or unless she sleeps with my best friend.
They’ll be these justifications for when they feel entitled to hit.”
Fitzgerald says treatment isn’t about light bulb moments where people realize
what they are doing is wrong. It’s about what they then do with that
information: “He needs to have the will to change, he needs to be really
committed to it, he needs support. In his own social life, not just his
partner”.
Every father’s duty
Respect isn’t the only organization which focuses on the role of men in
fighting domestic violence. There’s also the White
Ribbon Campaign, who work on raising awareness rather than directly
with perpetrators. Its head, Chris Green, tells me men have a responsibility
to work towards ending violence. “No father wants his daughter to be a
victim, or his son to grow up to be a perpetrator, so it is all fathers’
responsibility.”
Every father, because all types of men can be violent. It’s not, Fitzgerald
says, all “bald-headed, drunk, singlet wearing guys who are beating seven
rounds out of their partner every night”. Instead it's lawyers, barristers,
a lot of city workers, civil servants, traffic wardens - people like you and
me.
Working with male abusers can be toxic and there’s a lot to keep in mind,
notably constant risk assessment to make sure the men’s partners and former
partners are not in danger. And while many on the course learn how to curb
their violent behavior, they can’t always save their relationships.
“Some men realise their relationship is damaged to such an extent it’s not
going to survive and all they’ve got left is ending their relationship
cleanly. Without stalking, without violence. That’s hard for [former]
partners as sometimes these guys go on to have relationships that are not
abusive”, Fitzgerald says.
For Jack, the opportunity to go to a group changed his life and saved his
relationship with his wife and young family. But it’s not easy. “It is about
habit. I’m trying to forge the habit of letting that aggression dissipate,"
he says. “It’s such a difficult thing to fix. It’s not one of those things
you can pop down to the doctors and get yourself some tablets and fix. If it
was easy to cure domestic violence we’d have done something about it a long
time ago.”
*names have been changed.
If you have been a victim of domestic abuse, contact the National
Domestic Helpline on freephone 0808 2000 247.
If you have been a domestic violence perpetrator and would like to
receive help, contact Respect on 0808 802 4040, or The White Ribbon Campaign
on 01422 886545.
Post a Comment