Not a one-sided problem

The gender equality agenda has been led by the women’s movement for decades. Women and girls have benefited immensely from this relentless advocacy and activism. We must and will continue our efforts.
But this is not just a one-sided problem or a one-sided task – so we can’t look for solutions only to the one side – we won’t find them there. This will take joint action and joint advocacy.

The engagement and involvement of men and boys – the other half of humanity – is needed to end discrimination against women and achieve gender equality in society.

We need men to speak out against all forms of discrimination, and to speak out against sexism, abuse and violence.

We need men to take action to stop violence against women, to refuse to be by-standers, but instead to be vocal and take action to show that abusive behaviour is not ok.

We need men to challenge gender stereotypes and to be positive role models in their families and communities.

We need to find new ways that are truly transformative. New visions, new ideas, new ways.

I believe that all forms of oppression are interconnected. Social justice work in the areas of race, class, gender, age and sexual orientation are all critical to ending violence against women.

We need governments and politicians, church leaders and social authorities, to go beyond just words or the ‘no-response-attitude’. We have to change the narrative because what is being done (or not being done!) in society is not working. We need action. We need a new route.

 

Swedish police kept secret records over thousands of abused women

The Police of the Stockholm district of Södertörn have, over a period of 10years, kept secret records of thousands of women subjected to violence and domestic abuse. In the records, the police have collected sensitive and personal information on everything from physical and psychiatric diagnoses, drinking habits and personal details about their children and other close family members.

The Stockholm police registered women who contacted the police to report that they had been beaten and/or threatened. The secret records are full of sensitive data and offensive wording about the women.

Some say that ‘maybe the police had good intentions of putting the data in the register’, maybe they wanted to help the women ‘.
But what’s the point? Why keep records of women in this way – and outside of the regular police record keeping? And why these ‘home-made’ diagnoses and wording like ‘myth maniac’, ‘she is a tricky person’, religious affiliation, alcohol habits and other extremely private details?

Swedish National Radio report that police have dismissed criticism of the controversial records and said that they have been kept as a database to identify the perpetrators.
This despite the fact that the records focus entirely on women’s characteristics, psychiatric diagnoses and background. No corresponding records of the men exist at all.

The women in these records are violated twice  – they are violated once, and when seeking help, they are then violated again – by the authorities – the very thing supposed to support and help them.

The old, outdated idea and attitude of women in vulnerable situations is obvious in the way these records have been kept.
This is so terribly prejudiced and based on attitudes which should be a thing of the past – the attitude that the solution to violence against women lies with women themselves, not the man who beats.

It is completely the wrong focus – violence against women is about men who beat, and we must not forget that 16 women (in Sweden) are murdered every year by their spouse/other close relative, and thousands of women are living under, many times, lifelong threats and abuse – records like these won’t help these women the slightest.

One cannot but be concerned and worries over the fact that records like these may deter women living under threats and violence to report to the police.
This is not the kind of society that we want – women should not have to be exposed to, and subjected to even more and continued ‘punching’ (physically, mentally, emotionally) when they – many times in life-threatening situations – are seeking help from the authorities and from the police.

This story broke last week in Swedish media and there is an absolute outcry among Swedish citizens about the way these thousands of women have been treated.
The secret records and the story were uncovered by two investigative reporters and journalists at Swedish National Radio, Bo-Göran Bodin and Alexander Gagliano.

The image shows Swedish National Radio journalists Bo-Göran Bodin and Alexander Gagliano during their research work of the records that had been kept over a period of 10 years by Swedish police over women who had been subjected to domestic violence and abuse.
Photo: Pablo Dalence, Swedish National Radio.

To Be Stuck in the Land of Limbo

UK Government figures recently published show that 80,000 children are among the increasing numbers of those living in limbo because councils cannot find them proper homes.

Some are forced to live in hostels or B&Bs where they are only supposed to remain for up to six weeks, and the number of families with children overstaying in B&Bs has quadrupled since 2010.

These figures were part of a Sky News investigation which found families are being forced to live in unsuitable temporary accommodation for up to seven years.

A separate study by the charity Shelter, and seen exclusively by Sky News, reveals 41% of families in temporary homes in London are kept there for more than two years.

Roger Harding from Shelter told Sky News: “We were really surprised by the number of families having to live in temporary accommodation for so long. “That’s 4,000 families living in temporary accommodation for over two years and that’s them living in a place where their life has been put on hold.
“They don’t have the foundation of a stable home to get back on their feet and to properly look for jobs and get their kids into permanent schools.”

Even though they are often more cramped, it costs taxpayers more to house families in emergency or temporary accommodation than in normal council homes.

Mother Derya Dosdogru was given a one-bedroom flat in north London as emergency accommodation when she became pregnant.
The bedroom is two metres by two metres and has no windows.

Enfield Council initially said she could move somewhere more appropriate within six months.

But seven years later she and her son still shared the box-like bedroom surrounded by unpacked belongings.

She described it as “like a cell” and like being “in prison” without daylight.

Ms Dosdogru and her son were recently moved out after being assisted by local charity Raising My Voice Foundation.

During those seven years her flat cost the council between £200 and £300 a week.

Classed as temporary or emergency accommodation, rent can be up to three times that of a two bed council property – a bill footed by taxpayers. Temporary or emergency homes are supposed to be a short term fix for homeless families.
But the number of those in Derya’s situation has risen 20% in three years to more than 58,000.

Henry Gregg, from the National Housing Association, said: “The increasing number of people languishing in bed and breakfast, hostels and private rented accommodation, often with shared bathrooms and toilets, which is completely unsuitable for families, shows there is a real problem.

“We just don’t build enough homes.”

This is happening again and again. Peoples’ lives are put on hold with no permanent, stable homes and so therefore also making it harder to look for jobs and to get back on their feet and to have a normal, stable and secure life. This is happening again and again, in country after country. People who are forced to a life of constant ‘sofa surfing’ – IF they are lucky enough to have a friend’s sofa to sleep on, that is.

Governments, authorities and politicians – it is time to wake up! What would you do if it was your son or daughter, your sister or brother – would you care then, would you do something about it then? What if it was you? Think about it – there is a thin line between a roof over one’s head and having nowhere to go.

Source: Sky News.

 

 

The Power of Powerlessness

For someone who has not been in a relationship with abuse or violence, it is usually very difficult to really, fully understand how things such as powerlessness affects a person. ‘I don’t understand why she doesn’t just leave him!’ is the classic expression when you see or hear about a woman who is being abused in a relationship. ‘How can she accept to be treated like that?’
The answer is a multifaceted one, and there are usually just as many stories and answers behind as there are number of vulnerable women.

People in close relationships who control their partners by power and controlling abuse, entirely use their own frames of reference for what they consider is love, and they regulate them to suit them and the moment.

Something that people without these experiences often do not really understand is what a devastating experience and situation it is to live in vulnerability and fear. To constantly feel the psychological pressure with humiliation, abuse and threats, and sometimes also life-threatening situations. How it really feels to have to go to bed night after night after counting the kitchen knives in the kitchen and then have to ‘sleep with one eye open’. How it feels when one becomes breathless with fear as soon as you hear his key in the front door or to constantly walk on egg-shells and worry about what mood he will be in from one second to the other.

To experience this type of violence and domination in a close relationship is an experience so profoundly painful and scarring that it is usually impossible to fully take it in. The stress that the abuse and violence is causing the woman finally makes it hard for her to sort out her own feelings – what is right and wrong, normal and abnormal. Her whole world gets out of balance, often she starts to put the blame on herself and that she is the cause of his actions.

Violence has psychologically destructive processes, in which violence is normalized and where the victim often feels she has to take over the perpetrator’s perception of reality and feels she has to adapt to a life marked by violence.

The woman is often also literally thrown between hope and despair – to where from one moment she is being abused both physically and mentally, to periods without violence – hoping the situation will improve and the beating will stop.
But only to soon be thrown back into the claws of powerlessness again. This constant emotional throwing between extremes leaves deep scars and she often finds herself with a feeling of hesitation and finds herself beginning to question her own self-image.
Just a few words to those who are being abused; it is not your fault. Know that there is help and there is definitely hope.

People who have been through it and who are going through it, we must come together to exchange experiences and find ways to how we can reach all the women who have fallen through society’s safety net, women who now find that they don’t get any help from the authorities or elsewhere. Those who live each day with a sense of powerlessness, lonely and isolated – it’s to all of them that we need to give hope and help – let’s do it together.

 

Taking onboard our experience

It may be that we have a big part of the solution. As with everything else in life – if you have the experience and when you have personally gone through something, then undeniably you will have a diversity of insight, understanding, ideas and thus answers and suggestions to help get closer to solutions to the different parts of this widespread problem.

To authorities, politicians and policy makers, I would just like to say – get the insight and the knowledge from us who have experienced it, let us join together in this important work, let us be a part of it. Get knowledge and genuine understanding of this issue from ‘the real experts’.

It is time to let us ‘get on the train’ when it comes to creating durable, long-term and effective solutions. It is from us the real answers and solutions can come. Whether it is that we can have a voice through words, through campaigning, lectures, as advisers or with political work – it is worth taking our experience onboard.