Help Seeking Barriers To Domestic Violence

The term “intimate partner violence” means the physical, sexual or psychological harm by a current or former partner, in this case from the males. Survivors of intimate partner violence might find it hard to seek help for the violence they are experiencing. They might find barriers that stop them from seeking any form of help. In the following, the different types of help-seeking barriers women face and the reasons behind these barriers will be explained.

One reason why women may not want to seek any help is that of cultural barriers. Here in Malta, even though legalised in 2011, people still have the mentality that it is considered wrong to have a divorce. In Malta's culture, religion plays a huge role in the norm. It is against the religious beliefs to have a divorce, especially with the older mentality some people might still have to this day. Marriage, to Catholics, is something which should be permanent and that the ‘good' women stay with their intimate partner no matter what the circumstances. Their primary function is to take care of the family and cater to their needs. Here in Malta, we still experience quite large discrepancies when it comes to gender roles. Some people still have the mentality that men are better than women in general. They think that just by being born a male, it automatically makes them the dominant person and that women are there to care for the family. Another reason women find barriers to help-seeking is because with Malta being a very small country, word spreads quickly. Some women themselves or their family members might find it shameful to leave their husband, hence, they might find staying with their partner as the easier option just to avoid any form of shame.

The next form of barrier women might face is the socio-economic barrier. A socio-economic barrier is when, in this case, a woman, has financial concerns. Women might find it hard to afford any type of rent. This makes them have no other option but to stay with their partner and deal with the abuse. Not being able to afford rent is one of the major stresses a survivor faces, especially when they would have to leave their home and search for other alternatives. The perpetrator uses the money to control their partner or even to keep them from leaving. For example, the perpetrator would threaten them with their financial issue in order for them to stay. He would make them stay home and not find any work, or, if they work, he would take their paycheck. With this method, he would make sure that the survivor has no other option but to stay with him. He would also give them a sort of ‘allowance’ and check their receipts in order to look at what they spend their money on. This would make some women become financially dependent on their husband, therefore, leaving, especially if there are children involved, is even harder and they would be risking poverty. For survivors, if they have a job, keeping their job may be difficult as they would have other pressing commitments to go to. For example, they might have to go to court sittings and other things relating to their experienced violence.

Some survivors experience their own internalised survivor related barriers. This is when the survivors experience negative emotions which hinder them from seeking any help-seeking mechanisms. Some symptoms they might experience are shame, shock, fear, and confusion. This is experienced especially within the Maltese society, where, as mentioned above, the idea of leaving the marriage is considered as wrong and sinful. Furthermore, some survivors might get the idea that the perpetrator’s violence and abuse on them, is their own fault and so they blame themselves for it. Believing that could be because of what the people around them say. People around them might say that it is the survivor’s fault because it was the woman who sent her children’s father to prison. It is her fault that the child will grow up without a father. Self-blame is another issue women face. Studies have shown that older women experience more shame for their marital failure. It is hard for them to just leave the relationship as they have been in it for many years, compared to younger middle-aged women. This makes it more difficult to adapt to a new lifestyle because they are so used to their older one.

Some barriers involve the victims themselves being in chronic illness, therefore, they would have a higher dependency on their spouse. These women would be more dependent than other women on their abuser, therefore, making it harder for them to leave the relationship. For example, women with an immigration status find it harder to leave their husband due to complications with the lawful status, if their status depends on their spouse’s status. If their status depends on their spouse’s, it will affect their conditional residency and they might not be able to stay within the country they currently live in. Another form of barrier women might face is a disability. These women would find it hard to leave a relationship as they are dependent on their husband's care and so, they think they have no other option but to stay. The same idea goes with mental health and old age. These survivors face constant abuse and violence just because they are dependent, or more so, think they are dependent on their spouse financially and physically just because they think that they cannot do it on their own. These additional problems make it an even harder journey for the survivor. One chronically ill patient in the ‘DVAOW’ studies stated:

“My conflicts have not resolved and I don’t see where they will ever be resolved, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t see where he’s going to change until some terrible thing happens . . . I’m sure that if I wasn’t disabled and dependent on his salary, I’d be long gone. But because I have to stay in a bad relationship, due to my disability, I’m stuck. So, I notice I take a lot more abuse, because I have to, or I think I have to. There are options ...I could go on the street, I guess, but I want to live in my nice home.”

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Another form of barrier is perpetrator related barriers. This form of barrier is seen as one of the major barriers to help-seeking behaviour. This might be true in some cases because perpetrators tend to be very manipulative and have a controlling behaviour. The perpetrator's charm is so manipulative, that they manage to mislead not just their own friends, but they also manage to manipulate highly trained professionals into thinking what they want them to think. They use this kind of manipulation in order to keep control over their victims. The perpetrator's manipulation could also result in what is called, parental alienation. This is when a child is manipulated to target against a parent, in this case, it is the husband manipulating their own child against their mother. The child would be experiencing unjustified fear and disrespect toward the parent they were manipulated against. With addition to this, the perpetrator might use phrases such as “you cannot do anything right” or “you are not capable”, (Belknap, 1999, Griffing, 2002, Lutenbacher, 2003 & Zink, 2003) implying that she cannot do anything on her own without his help, and so she has no other option but to stay with him in order to cope with her life and also to instil self-blame.

Off-spring related barriers are types of barriers which are brought about by the children. Some children are the motivating factor which encourages the victim to leave their perpetrator. These children are called ‘push factors’. The children will be an encouragement to the mother to leave their father. Seeing their children upset and terrified of their father and over the constant fights and arguments will make them feel obliged to leave in order to make their children's lives easier. On the other hand, children can also be the ‘pull factors’, meaning that they restrain the survivor from leaving the perpetrator’s abusive actions. This may be because they might not want to separate the child from their father or, they do not want their child to grow up without a father figure. Another reason could be so that their child does not experience any type of bullying at school, especially if still at a young age, because he does not have a father. It might also be that the children themselves would not want to leave their father, therefore refuse to leave with their mother when asked. Thus, they would be keeping their mother from leaving, which would result to even more problems in the future.

Other forms of barriers include psychosocial, health care and education provision barriers. Some survivors have argued that they were not adequately informed about the available services, resources, and their own rights, which inhibited them from seeking any help. Research has proven that psychosocial factors are sometimes inaccessible. They found that participants mentioned having experienced long waiting lists, limited or lack of placements in the emergency shelters and the issue of the long distances, particularly for Gozitan residents. Resident homes should be opened even in Gozo to avoid all the travelling and moving as this would add even more stress to the women. Moreover, people should be educated and be well informed about the services, resources, and rights available to them.

Justice systems are of real concern to the survivors. Survivors feel that the justice system is insensitive and inflexible towards their problems. Perpetrators tend to use the justice system to institutionalise their control over the survivor. The police play an important role in safeguarding the survivor. He is also in charge of investigating the abuse or the situation. The police would collect any type of evidence they find and prosecute the perpetrator. Findings have shown that in some instances, police, when needed, did play an important role and helped and understood them in times of need. On the other hand, generally, the police were perceived into increasing their ability to deal with these situations that victims are facing. In the law domestic violence is written to be an ‘ex-officio case’, which is not the way some police officers deal with domestic violence, according to some survivors and other professionals.

Actions need to be taken in order to prevent all of these barriers. In order to eliminate these barriers, awareness campaigns should be held on a regular basis. These campaigns should be towards particular women, immigrants, persons with disabilities and older people. Furthermore, campaigns should also be targeted towards the public in general, including education for children and adolescents in schools at an early age. These awareness campaigns should be informing them about the different types of abuses they could be facing and others. They should also be informed about the available services to them and their own human rights. These women also need to be protected. This could be done by a systematic programme designed to remove the mentality that police work should be only a job for males, as most cultures think. Women should be recruited as police officers more frequently and should be given higher ranks. Women should also be assigned more central roles in the front line. When recruiting a police officer, they need to make sure that they are gender sensitive and respect women. Not only should they make sure that they are so, but they should give them effective gender sensitivity training. Moreover, justice system professionals need to be more survivor centred in their approach to the reduction of victimisation and, they also should require specialised training for a better effect.

In conclusion, further research on gender-based violence against women should be done on a regular basis in order to fully achieve equality. We need to further educate society about equality in order to stop violence against women. Having equal rights is not enough. Inequality exists in our minds, in our biases and prejudices, and that remains to be fixed. Much more needs to be done. Equality between the genders will take time, yet, I believe if we as a society take it step by step, we can indeed achieve equality and avoid all the unnecessary abuse and violence.

References

1. Beaulaurier, R. L., Seff, L. R., Newman, F. L., & Dunlop, B. (n.d.). Internal Barriers to Help Seeking for Middle-Aged and Older Women Who Experience Intimate Partner Violence. Retrieved December 13, 2018, from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.687.4177&rep=rep1&type=pdf
2. Don, V. T., Esq. (2018, November 10). How Will Divorce or Separation Affect My Immigration Status? Retrieved December 13, 2018, from https://www.peoples-law.org/how-will-divorce-or-separation-affect-my-immigration-status
3. Violence Prevention. (2018, October 23). Retrieved December 13, 2018, from https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/index.html