Awareness-raising on abuse essential
 

BY NADIRA Gunatilleke

IF there is anything bad happening in our society we have to decide on whether we should expose it or not.

We can simply decide this by considering the possible positive and negative outcomes of exposing and assessing those points. We can expose it if there are more positive points than negative points.

When it comes to violence against women and gender discrimination, this exposure plays a major role. But we should be careful what, when and how we expose.

Almost all the incidents connected to above two subjects should be exposed without no delay and also without necessary information that help to identify the victims. What we should not expose is the exact methods and techniques used by the perpetrators.

By exposing such information we help other mental patients hiding in society to achieve their wicked objectives. Telling the story using erotic language does the same damage.

We should expose the incident, how it happened, when and why it happened. We should also tell the public about possible security measures that help to prevent similar incidents in future.

We should always encourage females to tell the world what has happened in a secure manner, without exposing their private information. Every woman should know how to deal with media.

This will help every and each woman to prevent media from assassinating their characters before or after their death or after becoming the victim of a brutal crime. Anyway who needs a picture of the victim to understand an incident?

It is very satisfactory to learn that bringing out burning problems related to gender discrimination and violence against women and discussing them openly have contributed to reduce the problems to a certain extent and have encouraged victims to come forward while making ignorant persons thinking about their wrong doing.

Controlling abuse and violence is not in the hands of the victims. Therefore it is better to learn how to handle them effectively. Any woman can live safely knowing how to handle possible harassment and its after effects.

"I am an old lady calling from Ratmalana and I want to lodge an official complaint against my abusive husband. I have been subjected to physical abuse for over 35 years and cannot tolerate it any longer. Please tell me the directions to the Ratmalana complain centre", this is a telephone call received by me sometimes ago.

Although it made me very angry at once (because she tolerated abuse for 35 odd years !) I politely gave her some directions.

"I collect this column every week. This is real. I can give you more details to write. I have come across several similar incidents", this is what a clergyman told me over the phone recently.

"Something very bad happened to me while I was travelling home from my office by an intercity bus after work recently. I have no strength to describe it to you.

But somehow I will gather courage and tell it to you soon because I want to raise awareness among other young girls travelling by intercity buses", a young working girl attached to a leading newspaper company told me recently. I tried my best to get the story out from her but failed. After sometime she came to me and described the whole incident.

"My girlfriend faced a bitter experience while travelling in a long distance air conditioned intercity bus. I am willing to tell you the story on behalf of her because we have to protect other young women", said a young man.

Those are a few occasions the victims themselves or their loved ones came forward to raise awareness among the female community. It is your duty to tell the world, especially the female community what has happened to you how, where, when and why.

But you do not need to speak us about yourself. It is our duty to give a voice to the voiceless victims of abuse, harassment, exploitation and violence against women.