GROUPS INCREASE AWARENESS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

by Ana Maria Ruiz-Brown, Staff Writer-Translator

In October 1997 domestic violence in Juárez claimed the lives of at least three victims. According to statistics from the "Specialized Agency of Sexual Offences Against the Family," there were 634 incidents of domestic violence reported in 1996. In the current year the Agency gave assistance to 9,000 people involved in family conflicts. María Antonieta Esparza explained that there are two kinds of violence: one which constitutes a felony and one which cannot be called a felony. She also defined domestic violence as "every conduct direct or indirect in which the main objective is to hurt the corporal integrity, sexual liberty and patrimony or any rights of the victim." In 1996, there were 537 reported cases of sexual offences, 132 cases against the family, and 139 classified as "others." Of the 537 sexual offences, most of the cases are rapes against young women.

According to psychologist Myrna Isela Ruiz, for every 10 women who look for help at the Agency, 7 live in concubinage. Married women feel more limited because of legal, religious, and social causes. They'd rather "suffer" in silence to keep their matrimony "stable." Ruiz mentioned the most incredible stories of women threatened with knifes, glass bottles, guns, and those who know how to perfectly hide their wounds. According to Ruiz, "Women continue living in such intolerable conditions, because since their infancy they were taught to tolerate male abuse and power in a 'machista'- world with no voice for women."

It is very common that women withdraw their accusations, said Ruiz, because a women victim of abuse loses her self-esteem and is afraid to face work, family and life without a man. The worst obstacle of this problem is women's resignation, hurting not only them but all the members of the family. Unfortunately, young women (20-26 years old) generally tolerate everything. They don't realize what they can do since they have never experienced liberty. According to Ruiz, the violence starts when man seeks to establish his power over his wife. When the wife awakes and wants to leave the submission and be free, she is attacked by her man to demonstrate he is the only one in charge. Alcohol and drug addiction are key elements in the family conflicts.

Women defend their man because they depend on them or because they love him so much that they accept everything. That's why is common to hear "I accuse him just to scare him. I don't want anything to happen to him." These women will usually voluntarily recant any accusation. Liliana Suárez, psychologist from the Guadalajara University, explained the terrible consequences suffered by the victims in family conflicts. Children are timid, aggressive, slow in learning, cannot establish normal relations with the people with which they interact. Teenagers develop a very rebellious personality and tend to be aggressive. Usually they repeat the same behavior as their fathers. They beat their mother in the same way they saw their father when they were kids.

Spokeswomen of Group 8 de Marzo, a women's support and advocacy group based in Juárez, expressed the group initiatives: to dissuade and punish conduct which causes family violence, to establish proteccion measures to protect victims, and to demand that authorities develop public policies to prevent, combat and punish domestic violence offenders.

According to statistics from the United Nations, in undeveloped countries 2 out of every 3 married women are victims of domestic violence. México is included in this classification.