CAUSES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

I have read the editorial in The National newspaper entitled  “  Let us fight domestic violence”. While reading with interest and accepting the explanation given, I find that there is a deep flaw in the report.

No attempt has been made to explain the causes of domestic violence. It is accepted that men are at the very sharp end of domestic violence with a high percentage of women bashed.

There has to be a reason why such domestic violence exists. Perhaps such violence always existed but was never reported. Or perhaps the violence has escalated over the last decade with the legislation on violence to women.

Perhaps the war between men and women has only arisen with the legislations against violence passed and women saw themselves as free from the men who bashed them. Women were telling men that they were no longer the boss.

I recall a report in the media some 6 years ago which set out the complaint of a man that families were in chaos because wives did what they liked and went to the police to complain about their husbands.

They came and went from the house, did no housework, demanded money to be spent on gambling and home brew and did not have the evening meal cooked when the husband came home from work. This was the recipe for violence.

It was probably an impossible task for legislators to consult men before the bill went before parliament.

There appeared to be no attempt to get men’s groups on side and to work with them. There was no publicity on loving marriages and families put out in the media.

Men found that their traditional role as head of the family was in danger. They still had to pay bride price for a woman who did what she liked. Her daughters did the same.

There is a broad view among men that a man does what a man does. If he wants to bash his wife that is what it is .  Neither the Government, Welfare, Police or the Courts will stop him.

There has never been an official campaign to appeal to violent men and stress their role as head of the family in gender equality with the wife.

The problem has been made worse with the Foreign lesbian advisors of the UN and AusAID who have done their best to open wide the dividing line between men and women.

They seek to destroy the role of men in families for their own private sexual agenda to break up families and take the young girls.

What is the cause of domestic violence in the Papua New Guinea community?

There is a multiplicity of causes ranging from poverty, unemployment, low wages, alcohol abuse, marijuana and home brew, bride price and low education of primitive men and women.

Husbands and wives are unable to discuss issues. Men spend pay on booze and women use family food money for other purposes. Her child may have had to go to hospital and she spent food money. Or she bought home brew.

Men may use violence and rape to demonstrate their place as head of family. Women go their own way from family and do not carry out a traditional role as wife and mother.

Family money may be spent by the woman on a secret cell phone she uses to talk to men. She is selling her body to pay for food. She may be HIV positive.

Some families have no income with no money for food. The husband expects the wife to dig gardens and have food on the table every night. She is bashed when she cannot do that. He blames her for starvation of family.

There is no value in Governments and newspapers beating  their breasts on domestic violence.

The living conditions that breed family violence can never be changed but only get worse. There are thousands of young men and women in the community on their way to married life and poverty.

I come to the issue after two years spent in gross domestic violence at the hands of my daughters’ vicious mother. I belong to a group of men bashed by the woman in the family.

There is a core of men in this country who have suffered violence at the hands of a woman. My daughters and I have not lived with their mother in 19 years.

Domestic violence is a reflection of anger, frustration, hunger, crying children, dead babies, no money, no food and drunken husbands and wives who have spent their only money on themselves.

Families have no education, no employment, no land, no rent money, no gardens, no vegetables and no hope. They have worn out their welcome with wantoks living in the town who are struggling to live too.

In schools both boys and girls in all grades never speak in class to ask or answer questions. They never express a view. 

They will grow to be people who can not discuss issues with spouses but only resort to violence. But some boys and girls sit beside each other in class, talk and help each other. 

It should be compulsory for girls and boys to sit beside each other in all schools. Families should sit together in PNG churches. Separating males from females in church is quite primitive.

My daughter has a 24 year old boyfriend to whom she talks on cell phone every day. They laugh, discuss and enjoy talking to each other.  I hope they marry as there will be talking not violence in their relationship.