Indifference equals complicity

Have you ever happened to walk in the street and pass by a couple quarrelling and to discreetly avoid to look at them? Have you ever heard a noise, like a heavy object falling on the ground in the flat above? Have you ever seen a woman wearing sunglasses even when it is raining ? What do all these three cases have in common? Here is one story, as it was told by an annonimous: "Quarrelling is his favorite habit. Whatever I do it is wrong . When there is food, he says it is not good enough, if there is no food, he starts yelling and is always finding fault with the food.. either it is not warm enough or it is too hot. I no longer know what to do. He keeps misleading me . One night he came home drunk and he dragged me out of bed pulling me by the hair , undressed me by force and threw me on the staircase in the cold, it was winter, and locked me out . It was 3 am . I knocked at the door and I begged him to let me in . He told me I deserved to stay there. Eventually he opened the door and let me in after I had been shivering with cold for an hour. He wants me to jump out of the window , he often takes me there and tells me to jump , I ask him why and he tells me that I am crazy and I should jump out of the window to die and he pushes me to the edge of the window but I don’t want to die, how could I do that and leave my children alone . I have two children to raise "
That was the story of a woman. You will not be able to guess the terror in the souls of those who still keep silent .

Six NGO "s and an advertising company launched in Bucharest a new national campaign against violence on women . For one month and a half , five national TV stations will broadcast a video whose slogan is " indifference makes you an accomplice ". The Community Mediation and Security Centre of Iasi county is the main fund-provider of this campaign. Laura Albu, executive president of the Centre, said that the message of the campaign is targeted at those people who see, hear or know the problems of women who are victims of violence, people who choose indifference as a daily attitude. Psychologist Diana Munteanu explains us the origin of this attitude: "We tend to avoid and not admit the existence of this violent attitude. Because we consider the family as an inviolable nucleus, a private space in which we can not intervene and what happens there is their business. We are insensitive when these things happen next to us, in the street, in school or at work. Men tend to join the group they belong to and thus to find excuses . As a matter of fact, the victim also finds excuses for abusive behaviors and considers that she has not enough power or justification to intervene. The result is the perpetuation , encouragement and continuation of this phenomenon "

We want to believe that only those women coming from poor backgrounds are victims to domestic violence. Actually, women coming from all backgrounds irrespective of their living standards, of their professional or economic status are victims to domestic violence. Over the past two years, the Community Mediation and Security Centre offered psychological counseling, legal support and shelter to about 600 women . Diana Muntean says that more often than not , most women depend on their aggressors and are afraid of having that violence repeated if they report the abuse. " 40 % of the women who came to our shelter had no job , no qualification to find a job and did not have any other place to live. Most of them say ‘I won "t part with him but I wish he would no longer beat me. I love him, I won’t leave him but I don "t know what else I can do . I am scared , I am afraid". When they come to me, they expect to be listened to and to be believed .They are often accused of exaggerating certain facts that happened . And they are told that what they say is not true .. I encourage them to identify the problem , I try to see what behaviors they consider abusive and to convince them that it’s not normal that this should happen to them. I believe that nobody has the right to hit somebody else. I make them feel they are supported, I offer them certain services and then convince them that they are not alone and they are able to do certain things. Our counselors assisted in court 160 abused women who divorced their husbands and started anew. About 20-30 % of them are able to break with their past and start a new life. The rest of them, for various reasons, are not able to do that. They go back to their husbands and come back to us even often. We can not force anyone to do a certain thing; the victim must feel she is ready to cope up with a radical change in her life ".

Almost every day we can read in newspapers about such crimes. Some women are hit, offended and terrorized even in front of their children or in public. Starting last week , a law against domestic violence came into force in Romania.

How does the law define domestic violence ? It is " any physical or verbal action done on purpose by a member of the family, against another member of the same family inducing a physical , psychological , sexual suffering or causing any material damage " The people living out of wedlock establishing relations similar to those between husband and wife can benefit from the provisions of the law . If any physical violence occurred , the victim should go to the Forensics within at least 48 hours after the aggression had been committed to ascertain the facts . Apart from that, the nearest police section should be notified two months since the aggression at the most . If the danger persists, police can send the victim to a shelter where he would be accommodated on a certain period of time and would have his meal , psychological, legal and medical assistance even if in court. Mention should be made that until November 2002 no reference to that phenomenon has been provided in the legislation, the Penal code incriminating violence cases as a whole.

Renate Weber, the president of the Foundation for an Open Society said that the mere existence of a law and of services for victims would not stop the phenomenon: " Of course we wish to have shelters for women , but our wish is not to see the victims in shelters but to put an end to violence in the family or in the street. However the female population accounts for about half of the total population in Romania, so we could day that half of this country’s population is a victim of these abuses. Actually, no matter the number of laws , unless we count on the contribution of each of us to stop this phenomenon , we won ‘t do much ".
(january 2003)