Tag Archives: domestic violence

Situations pertaining to leaders #1

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12

There is an extended family: husband and wife, two small children and another on the way, grandparents, aunts and uncles. The husband has had some difficulties with alcohol and gambling. He is highly-strung, a perfectionist; things around the home have to be ship-shape all of the time. He is irritated if the childrens’ toys are lying around, if dinner is not ready when he’s used to it being ready.

His wife works hard to ensure he is not upset. She cleans diligently but sometimes her husband still finds something wrong. The couple has experienced a deep sorrow with the loss of a stillborn child some years earlier. Being pregnant again fills the wife with joy and fear in equal parts.

One of the grandparents, the wife’s mother, is fearful too. Most weeks, she spends time with the couple and frequently minds her grandchildren. She has noticed her son-in-law’s behaviour and is uncertain and fearful. She is uncertain whether her son-in-law’s behaviour towards her daughter could be characterised as abuse, and she fears what might be happening behind closed doors.

She is caught between feeling something’s wrong and not knowing how to proceed. She feels intimidated by her son-in-law’s mood swings, and also by the shadow of the loss he and her daughter have suffered. She feels called on to intervene in some way – sometimes she has to cut short her visits because the protests are there in her mouth – but she dreads the potential repercussions. She fears if she says something to her son-in-law or daughter her access to her beloved grandchildren might be revoked. She also fears it would cause fresh suffering.

One day, nothing much happens except for one thing. The grandmother chooses to act. She looks at the fear and then picks up the phone anyway.

***

Day in court

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7

The lawyer’s office is over in the corner.  It has no windows and a few mismatched chairs, and like the rest of the court, is decorated à la colonial motel.  Every weekday morning the lawyer provides free legal advice to whomever might walk up.  The only prerequisite is that the client be female, for the service is provided by one of the many specialist community legal centres that contribute to the rich and roiling caravan which passes through these rooms on any day, and which is otherwise known as the legal system.

Sadly, the overwhelming majority of cases the lawyer sees involve domestic violence.  And so it is on this day.  All four clients have been subjected to violence.  In three cases, the violence has been inflicted by an intimate partner.  The fourth is a so-called stalking case in which the violence is inflicted by someone usually known to the woman, though not a family member.

The clients are aged from 17 to 53, and are from a wide range of backgrounds.

The 17-year-old girl is there with her father.  They come in smiling shyly.  She has a black eye.  She recounts her story.  She’d moved in with her boyfriend and his parents a few weeks earlier.  Almost immediately, the boyfriend started pushing her around, and talking about men having to be tough with “their women”.  On a couple of occasions, the boy’s parents witnessed their son abusing the girl and defended her.  The boy’s brother also intervened at one point.  Then the day had come when the violence escalated, and the girl had finally realised her danger.  She’d gathered her belongings, rung her father to pick her up and they’d driven to the police station.  The police, hearing the story and seeing the girl’s eye, had issued an interim Intervention Order.

On this day, a few days later, the girl and her father are at the court to get advice about formalising the order and setting its terms.

As the lawyer goes through the standard terms of the interim order it becomes apparent the boyfriend has a gun licence.  This is an unusual and disturbing thing in Australia, home of some of the strictest gun laws in the world.  At the word the lawyer and the father stiffen.  Only the girl is unaware, as she shrugs that the boy brags about getting guns “whenever he wants.”  But her teenage naïvety is no match for the lawyer.  In the face of the girl’s unease about “making a fuss”, she firmly and patiently recommends the clause revoking the gun licence be preserved.

The last client is known to the lawyer.  In her mid-20s, she is very beautiful, and immaculately, even wittily, groomed.  Today she also has a gash on her face after a vicious incident with her husband the night before.  She is funny and intelligent and valiant.  She cries when recounting her tale of long hours working in her business and coming home to her husband who’s been surfing the internet.  She talks of ending the marriage and getting free of him, yet when the duty lawyer raises the option of an exclusion order she won’t hear of it because

he has no money, I have to give him money, and he’s got nowhere else to go in this country.

Somewhere during the conversation she discloses she’s three weeks pregnant.  The lawyer asks,

Did your husband know about your pregnancy when he attacked you?

The young woman says “yes.”  The lawyer nods, knowing the statistics: that the violence usually increases during the woman’s pregnancy.

Later, the lawyer sits with the young woman in court.  She asks about her parents, her history.  Her parents are back in her native country.  She arrived in Australia alone three years ago, and has established a business and learnt English since.  The court convenes for lunch and the lawyer has to shut up shop for the day.  She briefs the Police on the young woman’s case and gives them instructions to act on her behalf.  As she leaves she looks back, and the young woman is sitting by herself reading some brochures, waiting for the court to reconvene.

*****