Silent All These Years

In case you are one of the few people who might wonder why there’s a need for a TV campaign on the issue of Violence Against Women here are a few statistics for you to ponder:

•More than 100 women have been murdered in Ireland since the start of 1996.
•Over two-thirds of them were murdered in their own homes.
•In 2003, the Gardaí dealt with 8,452 calls to domestic violence incidents.
•25% of women experiencing domestic violence are assaulted for the first time during pregnancy.
•64% of Irish women surveyed in 1995 said they had suffered violence from a partner and that their children had witnessed the violence.
•Domestic violence has a higher rate of repeat victimisation than any other crime.
•Violence accounts for 7% of all deaths among women aged 15-44 years worldwide.
•OJ Simpson’s murdered wife Nicole had documented 17 years of domestic abuse she had never spoken about.

The End The Silence campaign, which comes under the auspices of the National Steering Committee on Violence Against Women, depicts a small girl playing with dolls while re-enacting her father’s threatening behaviour towards her mother and her mother’s plea not to hurt her in front of the children. It then shows the mother with her clearly subdued children before she calls a helpline (1800 341 900).
According to Yvonne Pim, Chairperson of the Public Awareness Sub-Committee of the National Steering Committee on Violence Against Women, and who is also Director of the Wexford Rape Crisis Centre, “The End The Silence television and radio campaign contains several key messages for women in domestic violence situations. They should be reassured that help and support are available free and confidentially to them and that such help is only a phone-call away. The campaign also stresses that domestic violence creates an atmosphere of fear and foreboding in a home, and is more than a series of one-off incidents. Another key message is that when living in a situation where it occurs, domestic violence impacts on the children too.”
Most of those working in this area are aware that men, and children, also suffer from domestic violence. But they refute any suggestions that the End The Silence campaign is sexist, arguing that domestic violence against men, women and children often has very different causes and effects, and therefore needs to be tackled separately. That argument does not rule out the possibility that in future there could be all-embracing campaigns or campaigns specifically directed at men suffering domestic violence.
“But”, as one experienced counsellor put it, “There needs to be more research done on domestic violence against men, not only to find how widespread it is, but also to ascertain if the reasons men stay in violent relationships are different from the reasons women stay. I suspect the reasons are often quite different."
In the meantime, the End The Silence campaign is a signal that the Government has finally recognised that violence against women is an issue that needs the commitment of finances and resources that go beyond the indifferent policies of previous government decision-makers and purse-string holders. But the campaign is no less welcome for being long overdue, and it is to be hoped that its impact will enable more women to seek the help they need in order to return to a life of non-violence that is the human right of every woman, man and child.

KATE (28-a shop assistant, not her real name)

Kate is quietly spoken, almost shy, but articulate and confident and cheerful in a way that belies the difficulties she suffered during her teenage years at the hands of a violent older man.
“I suffered from anorexia growing up outside Galway, and I had very little self-confidence about my appearance because I was so skinny and I found it hard to get boyfriends. I started my first real relationship with a man called Jim when I was just over 16. He was about 24 and the head of a department at a place where I worked. He used to make me laugh and made me feel a bit special and after about six months he left his wife and their two kids and we moved into a small flat in Galway.
"This meant that my very Catholic family cut me off but I didn’t care. I was with the only person in the whole world who cared for me and I only saw mother at Christmas or funerals or that kind of family thing. (My father died when I was 8).
"Things were grand between me and Jim for about a year and then he started comparing his life with me to his married life. Because he and his wife had kids and he had to pay maintenance to her as well as pay for our flat we didn’t have a whole lot of money. He had made me stop working because he didn’t want anybody to say he wasn’t able to look after his woman.
"I told him often that I didn’t care how much money we had and it didn’t matter if we couldn’t have a fancy car or fancy holidays and stuff like that. I also told him I’d be happy to work to earn extra money but he’d get mad whenever I suggested it. I wanted us to have a baby but he kept saying we couldn’t afford it. But he then changed from complaining about our situation to complaining about me and saying how I wasn’t as good a cook as his wife and I didn’t keep the flat as tidy as she used to keep their house and all I was good for was sex. It made me feel like I was just his whore. For some reason I decided that the best way for me to go was to try to be more sexy with him and make him feel that he had a better sex life with me than with her.
"Then I heard rumours that he was going to discos with his mates and visiting other girls in their flats. When I asked him about this he beat me with a sweeping brush, so I guessed it must be true. He was sorry afterwards and all that, but it became a regular thing and it got to the point that he usually wouldn’t have sex with me without being violent at the same time. He’d tie me up and beat me and once he said that I was so disgusting that he could only get it up if he beat me first and who else would have me and stuff like that. I suppose he raped me but I didn’t see it like that at the time.
"I had no friends or family to talk to, although I was friendly with an elderly woman next door. She told me one day that she could hear him beating me and gave me a name of an office I could call for help. But I was convinced that I deserved the beatings because this was only person who had ever loved me, who had left his wife to live with me, so it really must be my fault that I wasn’t able to please him enough.
"Then my mother called out of the blue because she’d heard what was going on. I don’t know how she knew. But she more or less told me that if I didn’t report the beatings she would do it for me. She told me about a woman she heard on the radio talking about her own experiences of getting beat up by her husband and I realised that the beatings would probably never stop unless I got out.
"So when his back was turned one day I took my few belongings and got taken into a sort of woman’s refuge in another town. For a while I was terrified he’d come after me, but as far as I know he never did and the next I heard of him was about a year after when he was up in court on assault charges after a brawl at a football match. I’ve heard little of him since.
"The women’s refuge was great because I found out that I was not the only one who was being beaten by their husband or boyfriend and they helped me to get back my confidence. But I also found it a bit depressing as well, meeting mostly people who were down all the time and suffering depression and complaining all the time. But overall it was great and helped me get back to a normal life.
"Looking back I should have got out at the first sign of violence and I would recommend that any women getting beaten up like me should contact her local women’s aid organisation or a rape crisis centre and not put it off like I did. Putting it off only makes it harder in the end.”

Yvonne Pim comments: "Men like Jim do what they do because they can get away with it. They start by grooming their victims to depend on them, they isolate them, making sure they have no friends of their own. They decide who they can see, what they can do. By intimidation, through verbal, physical, emotional or economic abuse they maintain that control.
"She loses confidence in herself, even feeling guilty that it may be her fault. She becomes confused because he apologises after beating her. She even excuses his sexual violence – that she didn’t see it as rape at the time.
"The End The Silence campaign is for young women like Kate. We want them to know that violence in the home is never acceptable and that there is help out there – only a phone call away. Friends and family members of young women like Kate also need to know that they can help too – by acknowledging what’s happening and offering support so she doesn’t feel alone.

TOMMY (47-a van driver, not his real name)

Tommy is a stockily-built, slightly balding man from a Dublin suburb. He has a morose demeanour and a lethargic, distracted way of talking. During our conversation he plays with a pint of lager and only drinks about half of it. He avoids eye contact for almost the entire discussion.
“I grew up in a lower middle class home in Donnybrook in Dublin. Home was basic but okay, and the only trouble started when our dad’s car business started doing bad in the '70s with the oil shortage. He began picking on my mother over every penny she spent and wouldn’t believe that prices were going up. After one huge row at the kitchen table at breakfast he hit her with plate, cut her lip and left her bruised for weeks. Neither me nor my brother said anything, not even to each other about it.
"I left home when I got married at 20. I think I got married to get out really. I know that part of me knew that he was still beating her but another part of me didn’t want to think about it. The brother wanted us to do something about it, but I thought our dad had worked his arse off to send us to secondary school and all and I didn’t want to be ungrateful now that he had some hard times.
"The marriage was fine for the first six or eight months or so. Then the wife got pregnant. After a while I started to resent having to stay in when most of my mates, who were still mostly single, were out jarring most nights or going to gigs or discos or following Shels. I also had the problem of dealing with a boss who treated me like shit and yet I couldn’t risk losing the job. I’d failed the Leaving and unemployment was going bananas. So I had to put up with shit at work and then stay at home the rest of the time.
"I began to think that the wife didn’t really appreciate the sacrifices I was making for her and the baby. I remember coming home from work one day in a stinking temper after some row with me boss. It was round about the time when all my mates seemed to have exciting lives. Gerry had started his own office supplies company. Jimmy got picked up by a League of Ireland soccer team, Don was doing well selling ads for a Dublin radio station. Everybody seemed to be happy except me. I was still in the same old bad job, but I was too proud to admit that I couldn’t hack it with the bastard of a boss, so life was fuckin’ awful.
"When I got home I tripped over a pile of washing in the narrow hallway and when she laughed at me I just lashed out at her without a second’s thinking and she fell against the ironing board and grabbed the hot iron and burned her hand. The burn helped to explain the bruising on her forehead at the hospital when she said she slipped while doing the clothes. I was amazed I’d done such a thing and I was totally sorry, but at the same time there was another voice in the brain saying she wouldn’t laugh the next time I fell.
"It got worse after I started going out with the lads again, whether she liked it or not, coming home late, spending all the money and dabbling a bit in soft drugs. She seemed to be always looking for more money and I suppose when it came to a choice between the jar and food I chose the jar, convincing myself that if only she was more careful with the money and so on. Looking back I can only guess how she managed on the little I gave her, although I think I have a good idea now. She got pregnant again, but I wasn’t sure if I was the father.
"Sometimes after I hit her I’d feel down, but I’d then go on a bender which might make me even more violent. Sometimes I’d be so raging I’d lay into her with fists and feet. Going home was often an ordeal. Sometimes I’d be determined to stay calm and not lose is. But sometimes it got to the stage that I’d be at work and looking forward to clocking off so I could get home and lay into her. It was almost as if it was it was only thing I could do that was my own, like. After one bad weekend drinking I beat her so much she had to go into hospital for nearly a week. She covered up for me by pretending she’d been beaten up and mugged just outside the front door, and we even told the same story to the cops and they believed it.
But then I had a visit at work from one of her brothers and another bloke. They told me they knew what was going on and that the next time I laid a finger on her I’d end up in the Dodder. I knew from the cut of them that they meant it.
"So I knew I had to do something about the bad temper, if only for my own survival more than hers. I’m not going to lie to you and say I felt deeply guilty about beating her. At the time I didn’t and maybe I still don’t. But I got into anger classes for a bit and that helped me sort myself out in a way. But I’m not sure if it was that or the fear of getting stuffed by those two blokes that did it. Even later, when we patched the marriage back together sort of, I was never physically violent to her again, but there were times when there was violence in my head even if it wasn’t in my fist.
"I won’t bore you with all that shit about loving the wife and not knowing what’d come over me. That’s just kids stuff. I didn’t really love her. I married her to get away from the house and she knows I only stayed for the kid I knew was mine. We eventually split up when I was 33 and she and the kids went to live with a pimp, probably the same bloke who threatened me. I don’t care either way.
"Sometimes I wonder if she was actually better off with me than the life she has now. I don’t see her nor the kids and I don’t want to. I’ve never been violent with any other woman but I generally avoid women these days anyway. On the odd occasion when I feel like a bit of sex I go to a prostitute. I’ve never been violent with a prostitute or any other woman I’ve ever been with. I don’t drink much any more. Maybe that’s why.
"I often find it hard to admit what I did and I keep finding reasons for blaming her for annoying me or laughing at me or not appreciating me. Sometimes I think I got it from our dad. Maybe I’ll never be able to admit it was mostly my own fault and maybe I don’t want to.
"I don’t know why I’m talking to you. This is very private stuff. Sometimes I wish I had a bird, but I’m not sure. My best mate at work keeps telling me to go to get help but I keep saying I’ll go and then chicken out. Maybe I’m afraid. Maybe I don’t give a fuck! Let’s just say I’m very confused at the moment and leave it at that.”

Yvonne Pim comments: “In Tommy’s account, it’s hard not to notice that there always seemed to be outside events to blame for his violence. Even starting with his father’s violence, it was the oil shortage and the money problems that resulted that were to blame. With Tommy’s marriage, it was feeling he was stuck in something dull and boring when all his pals were free and having a great time. She was looking for money (and he was spending it all). It never occurred to him that he was actually responsible for all that he did, it was the choice he made to behave that way. Violent men blame others for what happens, as if something or someone else makes them do it. Eventually he did do something to help himself, but only because he was afraid of what might happen to him, not because of her. And nowhere are the children mentioned – you can’t help wondering what they saw or heard, and the subsequent effect on them.”

USEFUL CONTACT NUMBERS

The Women’s Aid helpline: 1800 341 900
NDVIA (the National Domestic Violence Intervention Agency): 01-2020818
Wexford Rape And Sexual Abuse Support Service free helpline 1800 330 033 or www.wexfordrapecrisis.com
MOVE (Men Overcoming Violence) 01-8724357