NEW DELHI: Women victims of domestic violence endure torture and abuse for an average 4.2 years before filing a complaint with the police. An overwhelming 78% of such victims say they faced physically aggressive behaviour in front of in-laws, children and in public. About 60% took support from their children after facing violent behaviour. Nearly 17% said that children became human shields to protect them.
And only 23% women found their parents supportive after being thrown out by their husbands or their families. These disturbing facts came to light in a five-year study conducted between 2002 and 2007 on 1,805 victims who came to Delhi Police’s Crime Against Women Cell for help and were referred for counselling to a team of clinical psychologists from the NGO Swanchetan.
On an average, the counselling lasted an hour with about three sessions per couple.
Psychologists concluded that 1,531 of the women faced constant domestic abuse while 274 cases were overstated. "The situation could be much worse in north India’s smaller towns where police often treat domestic violence as a family matter, where the social dice is loaded against women lodging a protest and where support services such as short-stay homes or women’s organisations are either rare or absent," says Ranjana Kumari, director, Centre for Social Research. The study shows that dowry remains a major reason for marital discord and often leads to violence. A huge 54% of the victims said that the dowry demands began with sudden violence.
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