Scarred but not beaten

UAE society is gradually accepting the harsh reality of domestic abuse and taking steps to address it.

The attack came without warning. She reeled under it, shocked it was someone she knew so very well who should inflict it upon her. Fear, then outrage, welled up inside her but she held back and braced herself for more. The next blow was severe and made her cry out in pain.

She now closed her eyes to the attacker, her husband, and to the terrible reality she saw looming over her... a victim in her own home, grappling with the unbearable pain, hurt and humiliation, she saw how she could share this horror with no one...

Of all the crimes that are a blot on civilised societies, there would probably be none any worse than those inflicted by a member of a family upon another of the same. And there would probably be none that corrode the human soul as much. The scars run deep and the hurt remains irreconcilable. The suffering is almost always silent.

Scattered incidents erratically making local newspaper headlines bring home the point that the UAE, even as it takes giant strides in development, is a society now staring at serious social issues. And given the rapid pace of this movement, the local society can no longer afford to ignore addressing these, caution sociologists, academicians and medical experts across the country.

As one who has followed the subject closely during her stint teaching family studies at Zayed University, sociologist Dr Rima Sabban believes, "The incidence of domestic violence cases is high, and rising. When UAE nationals look at this issue, they can see it's happening here. And some would like to believe it's due to the high influx of the expatriate population. But I would put it down to the fast pace of development and the way society is moving ahead."

Changing needs

The UAE is perhaps the fastest-growing country in the history of the world. It has gone from a small close-knit neighbourhood, where families and neighbours cared for each other, to a state where neighbours no longer speak the same language. Given the boundaries formed by such a social phenomenon, sociologists do not find it surprising the social problems that occur from this growth are unique to the UAE culture and society.

Grappling with the onslaught of rapid development, yet largely rooted in tradition, the UAE society is still to come to grips with the issue, say social observers.

And it is probably a mix of self-imposed fears and the particular mores of traditional Arab society that makes most women, the larger percentage of the victims, maintain a stoic silence when faced with violence that takes root in their own homes.

"Unfortunately, it's always the physical manifestation of such violence that brings home the reality of its existence so brutally and frighteningly," says Dr Raymond H. Hamden, clinical and forensic psychologist who runs the Comprehensive Medical Centre in Dubai.

"Such acts result in extreme fear and physical and psychological damage to the abused partner, the main cause being lack of trust, respect and understanding between both the partners. Next come factors such as anger, jealousy and the mental state of the abuser. Of all the forms, physical violence, because it is easily apparent, may catch society's attention instantly but there are many kinds of abuse," he says.

Dr Sabban makes a strong case for urgent steps to deal with the issue. "We would be lying if we said there isn't any domestic violence in one form or the other everywhere. We all inflict violence upon each other. But there are accepted levels of violence and those that are not," she says.

According to her, value systems take longer to change and this is what sparks the problem. Changing value systems is changing a whole system of understanding, relationships, interactions and beliefs.

"Some people go to the extent of embedding stereotypes into religion. So if you tell them tradition doesn't condone discrimination of the sexes, they brand it as a religious requirement. That complicates the issue further.

"It is to fight off dogmas such as these that steady and cohesive state, organisational, non-governmental and societal participation is so important. Everyone concerned must first come together to understand the problem and then work out an effective course of action," says Dr Sabban.

Nascent stage

She explains that the West has been working on such issues for the past 100 years, right from the Industrial Revolution up until now. "Against that scenario, the UAE, a much younger nation, is still at a nascent stage," she says.

"The influx of expatriate communities into the UAE, with their particular problems and cultural sensitivities, may have created a cultural pot but not necessarily one that's melting. As a result, there are the borders of control. And every time you have control, you create tension with it."

Sociologists point out that often most people are not even aware they are releasing tension from the workplace at home or that their external environment is creating all that excess energy within, which they are venting out on each other.

Unfortunately, it's almost always the weaker sections of a household, usually women and children, who are at the receiving end.

"Strong women may be able to ward off violence. Other, weaker women, may not be able to cope. Also, sometimes if a woman is exceptionally weak, she tends to draw more violence upon herself," says Dr Sabban. The loss of what she terms "pacifying elements" may be a major factor in the rise of domestic violence in the country. Interestingly, in highly materialistic societies it is the pacifying elements, generally found at the spiritual (not necessarily religious) level, that seem to be lost somewhere.

"On the one hand, we talk about aggressive markets, aggressive cultures and aggressive development all around. Then we go home and are aggressive, which is, naturally, unacceptable. So what, as a society, do we want? Do we want aggressive people? When you walk through malls in the city, you sometimes see parents hitting their children. So, unfortunately, the UAE society is hurtling towards there and we just have to re-address all these issues."

It's probably at this stage that social observers in the UAE are stumped. Can any advanced society afford to have extreme issues, such as spousal abuse and child maltreatment, brushed under the carpet or negated?

"There must be readiness to confront domestic violence head-on," says Ushari Khalil, Managing Director of the International Institute of Humanitarianistics (IIH). "Domestic violence is perpetrated by both men and women; but men are the worst offenders, and their victims are not only their spouses, but also their children.

"Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of abusive behaviours recurring over time. In order to address it, it should first be defined as a crime. Indeed, it is a crime against the state, given its devastating effects on the victims and on society. So long as it is considered a private matter, it will continue unchecked and the victims will live a life of humiliation and misery."

Training and support

Head of a training institution that aims to "generate knowledge and impart capabilities", chiefly in the protection of children against maltreatment and domestic violence, Khalil has been actively involved in providing technical support and training on these issues in Saudi Arabia and in the UAE.

He has also been responsible for the design of projects for the protection of children involved in camel racing in the UAE, children involved in begging and trafficking in Saudi Arabia, as well as domestic violence in Saudi Arabia. "Women and child victims of domestic violence refrain from reporting their victimisation for a host of reasons: shame, money, children, love, fear of the abuser being punished and certainly because of institutional disbelief, disdain, denial and bureaucracy," says Khalil.

"Victims in the UAE, including foreigners and nationals, can and do seek redress; but that percentage might still be very small compared to the real numbers. Various structures in the UAE provide help - the Social Support Centre in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, the Human Rights Directorate in Dubai Police and Sharjah, and a few others.

"A good direction would be to make it mandatory for all professionals in health, law enforcement, schools, businesses and in social organisations to report domestic violence, in particular inter-familial child physical and sexual abuse, neglect and exposure to domestic violence. All perpetrators of domestic violence, male or female, should be held legally accountable and be made to accept to undergo treatment.

"Training of the police force, prosecution, the judiciary, health professionals, educators and social workers should create a significant difference at this juncture, but only if supported with the necessary laws and general awareness in the society," emphasises Khalil.

According to him, victims of domestic violence must be made safe, protected and assisted to heal and get on with a life free from violence and abuse. They will need temporary shelters and assistance of all kinds: medical, psychological, legal and financial.

Reinforcing this, Dr Hamden says in order to prevent such incidents there have to be strict laws that protect the victims. "Steps have to be taken to ensure education for the community in general as well as the individuals, both abusers and victims," he says.

Dr Mohammed Al Mutawa, professor of sociology at the UAE University in Al Ain, feels this is not a big social issue at the moment but one that demands consistent, transparent discussion.

"In some sense, the UAE society today is upset with the radical changes taking place within it, including the changing gender roles, roles that have undergone a significant and almost complete transformation in the past two decades. We have, over the past 20 years, come a very long way from what used to be a mainly traditional society. Men and women are seeing this as a reaction towards each other.

"Maybe it's a clear case that we're going through a new barrier and are at a new critical stage of development. I believe, within 10 years from now, things will have changed even more radically. The role of the family and gender roles between husbands and wives will have undergone a complete transformation by that time," he says.

Most people on the ground agree what compounds this sensitive issue is that unlike other more apparent crimes, this is a hidden malaise that occurs in the privacy of a home and victims are mostly reluctant to talk about it.

Statistics on the subject are not easy to come by, at least in closed Arab societies, says Dr Sabban. "It's not a subject that is discussed freely in the Arab society. Even in places where women are more vocal, as in the West - and there are institutions to encourage that - this isn't an issue that's brought up easily, primarily because it involves loved ones and, therefore, a host of related sensitive emotional issues.

"One reason why a victim may keep quiet about such abuse is because when you bring in a state organisation, an NGO or a member of the medical fraternity, certain regulations come into play whereby the victim is required to be separated from other members of the household. In the UAE too, when a case is reported, the victim will have to be removed to a safe place. This may involve separation from her children.

Societal intervention

"While the methods employed may be humane, the way these issues are resolved needs careful observation. As a caring society, there has to be some form of intervention to carefully look at how such problems are dealt with and resolved. While timely law enforcement and societal, organisational and legal intervention are important, as is taking the victim out of her situation to be able to offer her relief and rehabilitation, a great deal of sensitivity needs to be brought into play at this juncture," she says.

"A sensitised police and judicial machinery can make all the difference at this point," emphasises Khalil. "In fact, given that there are several actors in the process of rehabilitation of victims, training all of them is critical," he adds.

Family violence needs to be dealt with at various levels - individual, familial and structural. Any approach must be comprehensive and involve all the relevant actors working together and not in isolated professional islands. Looking at offering customised training modules for the police, prosecution, judiciary, medical and social players on dealing with family violence in the coming months, Khalil says the areas that need to be addressed include "knowing how to undertake forensic interviews, how to develop shelters for the victims, how to deal with perpetrators and offenders, how to raise awareness and how to formulate a national plan of action to combat this abominable practice".

According to Khalil, offering victims multi-aspect protection in the form of security, medical, legal and psychological assistance, as well as facilitating recovery and reintroduction to the family and society are critical areas that require state attention.

It is probably this network that requires sustained reinforcement, adds a social worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Although the infrastructure to rehabilitate victims may be in place, it is largely scattered at the moment, she adds. There are several governmental and non-governmental efforts offering assistance to victims but no official singular, cohesive machinery victims can anonymously and easily reach out to.

Human rights hotline

A visit to the Human Rights Care and Social Services Section at Bur Dubai Police Station, however, proves reassuring. According to Laila Ahmed Al Mulla, head of the section at the police station, victims have only to call the Al Ameen hotline on 8004888 to register any threat to their safety. "Or they can call the police emergency number on 999 and rest assured their case will be in safe hands."

According to Al Mulla, a total of 282 offences were referred to the Human Rights Care and Social Services Section at Bur Dubai police station in 2005. She offers statistics, stating this figure comprised all offences, including cases of domestic violence against women and children; humanitarian issues; juvenile delinquency; as well as general complaints. See Fig. 1.1.

The category of domestic violence included registered cases, those still under consideration, as well as those already resolved by the Human Rights Care and Social Services Section. See Fig. 1.2.

Fig. 1.3 indicates how many cases of the family violence were those of spousal assault and beatings.

Further, says Al Mulla, of the total 282 cases referred to the Human Rights section at Bur Dubai police station in 2005, 12 (4 per cent) were registered; 5 (2 per cent) are under consideration, while 265 (94 per cent) have been resolved by the Human Rights section.

As compared to this, the total number of cases referred to the Human Rights section at Bur Dubai police station in 2004 was 224. Of this, 17 (8 per cent) were registered; while 207 (92 per cent) were resolved by the Human Rights section.

State shelter

While the police take immediate action to deal with the problem and ensure a situation is created where the victim can return home, there are times when a victim is too scared to return home. It is here that the pressing need for a state-backed shelter becomes apparent. "What is required is an official, government-sponsored shelter which should be a temporary place of refuge for victims who should be allowed to stay there," says Al Mulla. "But only until the issue has been sorted out. One must ensure this does not become a permanent place of residence," she cautions.

However, she feels such a shelter is required mostly in the case of expatriate women and children given that most of them do not have any support system or extended family here. "In the case of UAE nationals, we first contact immediate relatives to achieve a reconciliation. I also know certain good-hearted families who take in such victims temporarily. I often reach out to them at times like this."

As someone who has even taken the children of victims to her own home, Al Mulla stresses the crying need for an officially-designated shelter in Dubai.

"We know the Department of Human Rights has made a proposal for a dedicated shelter, one each for Bur Dubai and Deira. Such a facility would be particularly important in the case of women who refuse to return home and have cases pending in court. Besides, there's the issue of custody of children when it comes to long-drawn court cases. Who takes care of them while the parents live separately as their dispute is being resolved in or outside court? This becomes an intensely traumatic period for these children. To play their part, courts must also actively expedite the resolution of such cases in order to rehabilitate victims at the earliest."

But how easy is it for a victim suffering from a violent situation to come out and seek help from the state? Says Al Mulla, "The UAE society has undergone a complete transformation and anyone in a dangerous situation, irrespective of their social status or nationality, should be able to walk into the nearest police station and seek help. If that's not possible, they have only to call the Al Ameen hotline, the police emergency number or the numbers of any police station on the Dubai Police web site. They could even stop a police car or a police officer on the roads."

NGOs have also been doing their bit in the sensitive and demanding area of providing refuge, as are social workers who have been working anonymously towards rehabilitating victims. Says one such individual, "These women are not criminals and just need a safe place to stay."

"Domestic violence has so far not been taken seriously as an issue. In fact, it wasn't even recognised for what it is until recently. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much real understanding of such incidents at all. And by and large, such cases are considered a sort of private family matter. In fact, in most instances, they aren't even considered an issue.

"As a traditional society, the first instinct is to protect the family and its privacy. Most UAE nationals would be mortified if somebody in their family spoke about such incidence, wrote things down, or kept a record in any way at all. While protection of privacy is so important in eastern cultures, interestingly, it was also the case in the West until the 1970s.

"In real terms, the revolution in protecting women and children against violence has been quite recent in the rest of the world as well. Though a later entrant, the UAE is in the process of developing its own systems to deal with the issue. And there are reasons for being optimistic that the country will quickly be able to evolve its own effective system to respond and cope with this issue," she says.

Focussed effort is evidently on behind the scenes just as like-minded people are busy at work. So even if it did just take several more years to wipe out the issue, as it shakes off its silence and looks the problem in the eye, UAE society may well be taking those critical steps forward.

What is domestic violence?

Clinical definitions of the subject vary. Social scientists describe domestic violence as:

- The summary of physically, sexually and psychologically abusive behaviours directed by one partner against another, regardless of their marital status or gender. Generally, when one form of abuse exists, it is coupled with other forms as well

- Physical, psychological, sexual or financial violence that takes place within an intimate family-type relationship; it forms a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour. Crime statistics and research throughout the world show domestic violence is gender-based and usually the perpetrator is a man who forms a pattern of repeated assaults

Frightening facts

- Women experience the most serious physical and repeated assaults

- Any woman can experience domestic violence regardless of race, ethnic or religious group, class, sexuality, disability or age

- Domestic violence destroys the lives of both women and children

- Domestic violence is now one of the issues facing the UAE. Traditionally, UAE national women had the support of their mothers and family network. The UAE today has a diverse population comprised of many foreign nationalities. Many of these expatriates are women who live isolated from the support network of their immediate families

Research paper

Dr Layachi Anser, professor of sociology at the UAE University in Al Ain, has conducted a study, ?Silent Suffering'. It includes a survey of 300 women, 50 per cent of whom are students.

A comprehensive work, it includes samples by age, educational and marital status. It also reflects how many wives were subjected to violence; what/who were the factors influencing/instigating the husband to inflict violence upon his spouse; the various forms of violence and the reasons for it; distribution of the victims by occupation; the periods of exposure to family violence; levels of education of the victimised women and several other categories.

Among the most significant findings are these:

52 per cent of victims in the survey were in the 20-24 year age group

57 per cent of victims had completed their university education

94 per cent of victims were married

60 per cent of married women in the survey had been subjected to domestic violence

Of the various forms of abuse, the highest is verbal (49 per cent), next is psychological (30 per cent), beatings comprise 15 per cent, while other forms comprise 6 per cent