Domestic Violence

>>**Domestic Violence**<<
  
>>April 5, 2012<<
  
Men who beat or threaten their wives or life-partners are an important and 
difficult problem for our program. Our core strategy is to help women develop 
independent and sustainable sources of income. Such independence can position 
women to escape from some violence. But it can also increase the threat of 
violence, because men can feel threatened by that very independence. 
  
It's not that domestic violence is especially common among the families we work 
with. I have no reason to think that it's either more or less common than it is 
in other segments of the population, whether those other segments are in Haiti 
or somewhere else. I don't have the data. But we have to address the cases we 
come across, because our program simply cannot succeed unless we do.
  
I've written of Ifania and Grenn, a case in which we were able to intervene 
with great success. (See: DeleGasyon.) Grenn is now among the most 
enthusiastically cooperative husbands we deal with. He worked hard to help 
Ifania build her house, has defended her loyally in the face of his mother's 
jealous interference with her progress, and helps her take good care of her 
animals. Some stories have happy endings. 
  
I've also written about Oranie Pierre. (See: OraniePierre.) We haven't really 
been able to work things out for her. We want to put her husband in jail, but 
it requires her agreement. Every time she's on the verge of asking us to help 
her do so, he disappears for a couple of days and then returns, less violent. 
She then decides that she'd like to give him another chance. 
  
And it's not as though arresting him would be easy. Oranie lives far from 
anywhere that police regularly go. And the way their home is situated, offering 
a clear view of the approaching paths, he would have an easy time clearing out 
if he felt threatened. Police couldn't approach without his seeing them. So his 
neighbors would have to arrest him first and deliver him to the police. But 
they're a little afraid of him too. 
  
So Oranie continues to move forward, but her progress is fragile. We can't know 
when or whether a new act of violence will set her back again. What is certain 
is that we have to keep working at these problems wherever we encounter them. 
And we have to grasp at whatever means we can find.
  
Santiague must be in his 70s. He's a short, slightly tubby man, with what 
always looks like a few days' growth of thin, greyish-white beard. He's not 
very distinguished looking, but appearances proverbially deceive. I know him 
mainly through his daughter, Menmenn. She's a woman, about my age, who works as 
the cook and housekeeper at the residence we share with the Partners in Health 
staff in Bay Tourib. 
  
Menmenn is also a leader in the Bay Tourib community. She's one of the founders 
of O.D.B., the Organization for the Development of Bay Tourib, which is the 
peasant group that originally invited Partners in Health to open a clinic in 
their town and then worked hard to help us get our work started, too. As one of 
the most comfortably literate of its founders, she serves as the group's 
secretary. People look to her. Her opinions matter. Her grandparents raised 
her, and they must have made a commitment to her education beyond what other 
Bay Tourib parents were offering their girls.
  
Santiague first came to my attention the day we inaugurated CLM in Bay Tourib. 
We held a large celebration. More than 1000 people attended. In all the 
confusion, Partners in Health's most senior representative lost her camera and 
her cellphone. 
  
"Lost" is a euphemism. They were in her bag, which she put down for a
moment. When she went back to the bag, the camera and phone were gone. One of my
colleagues took got on the microphone, PA system we had set up for the event,
explained to the crowd that someone had "accidently" picked up the
telephone and the camera, and asked that they be returned. He said that we were
certain that it was a mistake and that we would not ask any questions of the
person who returned them.
  
Nothing much happened.
  
When Santiague got wind of the theft, he told us to give him the mike. He said, 
"Whoever took the foreigner's stuff: If it's not brought to me by the end 
of the week, whatever happens to you is your own fault. I'm the one telling you 
that." Both camera and phone turned up the next day. 
  
To influence the goings on in a community sometimes requires finding someone 
who has real clout. In Bay Tourib, Santiague has clout. Santiague is a 
//gangan//, a practitioner of //Vodou//. His authority is probably based to 
some degree on the wisdom he is felt to have as an elder in the community, but 
it's probably also based on the belief that he has special powers to do his 
neighbors good or harm.
  
We thought of Santiague when we were facing a difficult problem. We had two CLM 
members, Yveroselène and Roselène, who were being beaten by their 
husband. Each has what counts for a house, but they are both partnered with the 
same man, Jelik. In fact, he has a third wife as well, Dieukifaite. They live 
in three separate houses in the same yard. All of them are CLM members. 
  
Jelik was beating both Yveroselène and Roselène. He has beaten 
Dieukifaite in the past, but hasn't done so lately. It is not hard to imagine 
why Jelik would feel threatened by our program. He has three wives, and can 
support none of them. Meanwhile, our program gives them a real chance to learn 
to take care of their children and themselves.
  
We first tried to address the man himself. When we spoke to Jelik, he told us 
to mind our own business. 
  
Then we spoke to the KASEK, an important local elected official. Since there 
are no police in the more rural areas, the KASEKs generally are to some degree 
responsible for law and order. He said he'd talk to the guy, but either he 
didn't or he spoke with him to no effect. 
  
The next time we heard that Jelik had beaten one of his women, we tried to 
confront him with numbers. A bunch of us hiked up to their home. But by the 
time we got there, he had disappeared. 
  
A few days later, he was hanging around the Bay Tourib clinic. When we 
addressed him there, he swore at us rudely and boasted about how he would beat 
his wives whenever he wanted to. It was his right, he said, and none of our 
concern. It was even, he said, our fault, because since joining our program the 
women had gotten uppity.
  
So I asked Santiague to talk with him. I told Santiague that we needed help 
from someone the man respects. Santiague agreed to intervene, and the guy 
hasn't struck his wives since. The last time he spoke to us, he said that he's 
"not doing that anymore."
  
The economic and social development that we aim to help our members achieve 
depends on many, many factors. But nothing can be achieved unless, at the very 
least, our members are safe from physical harm. Working towards that safety is 
a complicated job. Every case is different. We need to be willing to do 
whatever it takes to resolve these issues, and to be creative enough to find 
the places we can turn to for help.