A series of domestic violence cases, including several recent murders of spouses and the deaths of two abused girls, have many people asking what can be done to prevent violence in the home and what measures the government is taking.
“Although most victims of family violence, regardless of their age or gender, are not willing to talk about what is happening to them, people around them can usually pick up some clues if they care about their relatives, friends and classmates,” Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation deputy executive director Kang Shu-hua (康淑華) said.
But “many Taiwanese are still hesitant to extend a helping hand to victims because they think [domestic violence] is a family matter,” she said.
The most recent data from the Ministry of the Interior indicate that the number of cases of domestic violence reported to the police, hospital authorities and social welfare organizations grew by about 10 percent last year over the previous year.
About 79,900 cases were reported last year, with 16 deaths attributed to domestic violence.
Some experts say the rising numbers are good news in that an increasing number of victims feel empowered to report abuse, whereas in the past they and their families kept silent.
At the same time, experts warn that the numbers indicate that domestic violence remains a grave social problem.
“A bad economy has undoubtedly been a key factor in many domestic violence cases in recent years, while growing public awareness about the seriousness of the problem has contributed to the increase,” Kang said.
Since the enactment in June 1998 of legislation to combat domestic violence, the number of reported cases of domestic violence has steadily increased.
Ministry figures showed that women account for about 60 percent of the victims. About 40 percent of women victims are between 30 and 50 years old.
Minors make up the second-largest group of victims at about 22 percent.
Kang said the reason that women between 30 and 50 years old were often the victims in reported cases was not only because most women in this age group are married but could also be because they are more open to seek outside help.
Nonetheless, she said it was not easy for many women to escape an abusive marriage. Getting out of a desperate situation can often be a long and painful process, Kang said.
“On average, abused married women have to make seven attempts” before succeeding in getting away from their partner, she said.
Based on an analysis last year of cases handled by the Modern Women’s Foundation, around half of women victims said they sought help only after five years of abuse by their husbands, foundation head Yao Shu-wen (姚淑文) said.
That marked an improvement over past studies, she said. Fifteen years ago, most abused wives said they waited more than 10 years before seeking help.
Citing police figures, the foundation found that 67 percent of domestic violence cases involved abuse between husbands and wives. About 6.5 percent of the cases involved severe physical assaults.
More than one-quarter of domestic violence offenders were husbands who seriously abused their spouses and children, Yao said.
Yao said the prime factors preventing a woman from filing a complaint against her husband were the fears of physical reprisal, losing custody of their children or losing their husband’s economic support.
Fear of tarnishing their family’s reputation was also a key factor, Yao said.
Wang Yu-min (王育敏), chief executive of the Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF), said underage victims were more easily exposed to domestic assault compared with adult females.
“Out-of-control parents are resorting to more aggressive means when annoyed by their children and the related fatality rate is growing,” Wang said.
In one recent case, a 10-month-old baby was killed after her father dropped her in a pot of boiling water during an argument with her mother.
In another case, a two-year-old was killed by her father, who beat her with a broom.
Wang advised parents to seek professional help on how to control anger and aggression.
“Never vent anger on children or use them as a tool in a relationship,” Wang said.
Citing an international study by the UN Children’s Fund, Harold Li (李宏文), chief coordinator of the child welfare foundation’s office of research and development, said poverty, emotional distress and parental addiction to drugs or alcohol were leading risk factors behind child abuse.
In 2007, 23,299 children lived in “high-risk families,” with at least 3,000 in danger of physical abuse by their drug or alcohol-abusing parents, the foundation’s statistics indicated.
Li said that although parents addicted to alcohol are as dangerous as drug-abusing parents, in Taiwan only drug-addicted parents are subject to substance abuse treatment by the government.
Parents who are alcoholics are not required to undergo any treatment.
“Government assistance in this regard has been scarce, leading to the rise in a string of related problems,” Li said. “Such a difference presents a loophole in the prevention of child abuse.”
Of the nearly 80,000 domestic assault cases last year, 13,073 children were involved in 21,443 “serious cases” in which the government intervened — compared with some 9,800 children in 2005, ministry tallies showed.
More than 80 percent of the abusers in serious cases were parents, guardians or caretakers of the children, the statistics showed.
One of the challenges in fighting domestic violence is that the number of frontline social workers in Taiwan is relatively low compared with other countries, experts said.
Last year, only about 2,400 social workers were employed by public agencies and welfare groups to assist women and children who were suffering from or risked domestic violence, ministry figures showed.
In terms of the overall population, that means one social worker per 3,000 citizens compared with one social worker per 450 citizens in the US, one to 650 in Germany, one to 900 in Hong Kong and one to 1,000 in France, Kang’s foundation said.
On average, each social worker has more than 70 cases to deal with at a time — triple the workload of those in the US, Li said.
Although publicized cases of domestic violence have stirred heated public debate, experts remain skeptical about whether the government is taking meaningful steps to combat the problem.
“What the government can do after receiving reports of such cases is very important,” Li said. “How it can save people and safely prevent people who speak out and social workers from being harassed or threatened is a critical issue.”
To encourage people to report suspected cases of domestic violence, law revisions requiring neighborhood chiefs and township officials to report the cases to authorities need to be approved by the legislature, experts said.
Chang Hsiu-yuan (張秀鴛), senior secretary at the ministry’s Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention Committee, said legal protection for victims was adequate, but “Taiwan needs to provide better and more diverse shelters for victims and particularly housing and jobs for abused women.”
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