The first women's shelter in Shandong Province, which provides
temporary safety and respite for women suffering from domestic
violence, has not had a single victim since it opened its doors
three months ago. A report from
Worker's Daily asks why?
The women's shelter was set up at Jinan Youth Park Block by Jinan
Women's Federation on February 27. The shelter is equipped with
beds and the daily needs of women who have suffered serious
violence in their families.
As
a victim of violence, a woman who lives there will get the
assistance of the women's federation, and the public and justice
authorities who will intervene thereafter on their behalf and
provide legal aid. But, in three months that have past, no victim
has been willing to come and seek protection.
Sun Jie, director of the women's federation in Jinan Youth Park
Block, said the phenomenon did not mean that there was no domestic
violence in Jinan, but that the traditional concept of "domestic
shame should not be made public" was playing a significant role in
the hearts of these women.
The center said that since the women's shelter was established,
they have counseled many women, who were exposed to domestic
violence, sometimes by phone. For example, there was a woman living
far away in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province, who wrote a letter to
the shelter for help.
However, as the shelter staff express their willingness to adopt
new measures to help, those women inevitably take a circuitous
route to refusing it. Some of them won't give their address or
their working unit, while some of them just resist help, being
afraid that their husbands will be taken to prison as can be usual
with police intervention.
Not long ago, a woman suffering from domestic violence came to the
shelter and said that her husband had jabbed her in the buttocks
with a scissors. For several nights she wandered the streets as she
couldn't stand her husband's assaults. But she came to the shelter
just to talk of her trouble. She was worried that her parents would
be anxious in knowing it, and she was also afraid that her friends
would laugh at her afterwards. The woman just preferred to endure
it.
With regard to this phenomenon, Shandong Province began to initiate
some activities hoping to alert women suffering from domestic
violence and get them to stand up for their rights because nobody
deserves to be abused. Some people have called for these women to
shake off the traditional concept of "domestic shame should not be
made public" and bravely take the strong arm of the law to protect
themselves.
(China.org.cn translated by Wang Zhiyong, June 29, 2003)