Violence against women – physical violence, rape, verbal and emotional abuse – is on the increase and in some countries a horrifyingly large majority of women can expect to suffer violence from their partners or male relatives. Christians too are often guilty of perpetrating it. Surely we have a duty to end violence against women?
South Africa: Changing the law
The Masimanyane Women's Support Centre for abused women was set up three years ago in East London, South Africa. It started as a counselling service, providing legal and emotional support. Coordinator Leslie Anne Foster herself found the police unwilling to implement a court order against her husband when she suffered sexual and violent abuse. Women, she discovered, were often discriminated against by the justice system.
Masimanyane with other activists began campaigning for a change in government policy. The result was South Africa's progressive Domestic Violence Act of 1998. It compels the police to assist victims, tell them about available help and allows women to get injunctions against violent partners.
Samoa: Educate men and women
Making people aware about violence against women is difficult. In Samoa, Mapusaga o Aiga ("Family Haven") is an independent organisation which highlights issues of domestic violence and offers training in legal rights.
"Workshops can fail because permission for them did not go through the proper village committee channels. These are dominated by men and if they don't understand the need for legal literacy the workshop won't happen.The long-term issue is how we can educate men as well as women and the village committees." The Church itself can be an obstacle: "What we preach is from the Bible too; but the Church is afraid of empowering women."
India: Some tasks for the Church
In 1998 in India, 40 women from nine churches called a meeting to review the action of the Indian Church. Concerned about rising violence against women, they made this challenge: "If the Church is a community then the entire community is responsible for any assault on an individual member, especially women. The Church cannot remain silent.
"The Church should provide refuge and counselling and some means of livelihood for victims of violence, as well as a coordinated service between the police, medical, social welfare and health services.
"The Church through various media should make its members aware about violence against women."
Bible Study: John 8.3-11
Surely the adulterous woman deserved a stoning? She had been caught in an adulterous relationship (v4) – a social crime with a clear penalty in religious law (v5). Jesus does not deny she was wrong (v11), but he exposes the cultural assumption, made respectable by law, that only the woman is guilty (v7; Luke 16.18). It is also an unjust one that condones violence against women by men.
There are two lessons to note here. First, the whole passage dares to challenge accepted assumptions and the legal framework around them. He dares to say that human rules and customs need to be challenged when compared to God's values and perspective (v17-18).
Second, Jesus' defence of the woman's right to be treated with dignity is not an isolated act in the gospels. Women marginalised by attitudes, religious sanctions and a patriarchal society are deliberately protected – see the stories of the woman who anoints Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman.
Questions
Facts
(United Nations Development Programme, US Advisory Council on Violence against Women, Panos Institute, World Vision)
Activities
What would you do?
(Courtesy: Joint Churches Domestic Violence Prevention Project, PO Box 1167, Toombul, Queensland 4012, Australia)