Iraq raises the pitch for fight against domestic violence

Baghdad: As the violence of sectarian warfare ebbs, Iraq's government has taken tentative first steps to combat another kind of violence — domestic abuse, primarily against women.

The Interior Ministry has opened two "family protection" centres in Baghdad police stations, the first of their kind, to deal with cases of domestic violence.

The centres are staffed mainly by female social workers and investigators, an important step in Iraq's male-oriented culture to make women feel more comfortable about reporting abuse.

So far, because the centres are at police stations and domestic violence remains a taboo subject, few women have dared to go them for help.

Yet, the state Ministry of Woman's Affairs considers the centres to be a victory for Iraqi women who once had nowhere to turn.

‘Untold crime'

"I always call this violence the untold crime because it does not end up always in the courts ... it's a serious issue if there are no civil centres or legal authority to resolve it," Azhar Al Shaarbaf, the ministry's legal expert.

Shaarbaf said Iraqi politicians once rejected the idea of women being abused and turned a blind eye to the issue.

"Now the political class comprehends the words ‘abused woman,' which is progress, since the political class is the one that makes decisions," she said.

Iraq has no official data on abused women, but the government no longer denies it is a problem that needs to be dealt with. Kamil Ameen, a spokesman for the human rights ministry, said a lot of Iraqi women are abused, whether through disrespectful treatment, verbal insults or beatings.

It is not unusual to see signs of violence on a woman's body or to hear shouting or crying coming from houses.

But women seldom complain or seek help.

Tradition makes it difficult for a woman to complain to police about a husband because she could be seen, even by her own relatives, as having brought shame upon the family.

"The reason is the cultural nature of the society. When the women is abused she has no place to go," Ameen said. "She still feels afraid and considers complaining socially unacceptable."

Limited usefulness

At the new family protection centre in Baghdad's Qahira district, a police lieutenant who wanted to be identified only as "Israa" said while the centres were a positive sign, their location — in police stations — limited their usefulness.

"It is not going to work ... because she [an abused woman] will consider herself coming to the police station, not to a social centre, and that is socially unacceptable," she said.

The centres are not shelters for abused women and their main mission is to resolve conflict. In the case of a woman beaten by her husband, for example, the offender might be required to sign a document promising not to do it again.

Israa is a university graduate in Psychology.