The belief that women cannot leak out the violence they
experience in their homes is another
factor that motivates men to abuse
women. The participants gave their opinions on this belief:
Fikiri: I believe women are scared to tell neighbours
what men do to them in the home. This is a domestic secret that is between the
husband and the wife. Any woman who would expose her husband's attitudes and
beliefs outside the home is not submissive and she deserves
re-education.
Joco: No woman can tell anybody if her husband abuses her
in the home. If she says, she will have looked down her parents and aunts who
repeated her several times to never respond to her husband once he is very
angry. Every woman here knows all this. Yes, she fears to be sent back to her
parents with the kids, which is an over charge to her family.
Dondo: Hey dude, who is that woman who can expose her
husband and cause him public shame? She can't and we are sure of this and they
also know it. I know some who are severely abused but they tell people that
they hit a wall or a tree at night; but we as men we know what are that tree
and that wall. This because if she leaks out the incident, she will be sent
back to her parents' for re-education. They will pay a fine for not educating
their daughter and so they will blame her.
Comanda: she can't tell anyone and she can't go because
of the children. She knows that no woman does that; so she can't tell anyone
but if she does, she risks more than what she told the world.
Discussion
The scrutiny of Dondo's belief shows that South Kivu men
abuse family members because they are sure the victims will never leak out
information regarding the abuse. The fear builds around two factors: women are
physically weak and naturally, they are very secretive with the hope that
things will be better tomorrow and those who attempt to go beyond this
encounter harsh and big challenge. Men threaten their family members,
particularly the wife of not being submissive if they tell friends about the
violence they live in the home. It is in this context that Wilondja (2008:72)
corroborates that family members never talk to friends and others about the
awful abuse they experience in their families because they are afraid of
possible harmful retaliation response from the abuser. As for one respondent, a
family member cannot dare to leak out the abuse they witness on daily basis;
otherwise, they may be discriminated and abused. Such members can be chased
from the home, which sometimes make them lose accommodation because they said
what other victims never reveal, no matter how awful the abuse is.
In most cases, men know that women cannot reveal violence
effects due to fear. South Kivu women's manifestation of fear is quite
understandable because those who are abused in the home are at risk. Once the
woman decides to leave the abusive home, if the man still loved her, he may
become more virulent and decide to harm her physically. Women often keep their
abuse a secret while they are sitting on an active volcano because of fearing
others' reaction. That is the reason why the abuser does all the best to keep
the victim isolated from her close relatives and friends (Rude, 1999:22).
If we consider the arguments of both Fikiri and Joco in a
focus group interview, it is clear that the stigma that is constructed around
revealing the abuse committed in South Kivu homes seems to be more rampant.
This may mean that because men are ashamed of what they do to their family
members, particularly the wives, are stigmatised, which makes them to hide the
violence of their husbands in the homes. As an illustration, where speaking of
Iragi, Fikiri refers to his neighbour woman who was seriously beaten to death
by her husband in Kabare in 2009 because she said publicly, and in the presence
of her husband, that he often
abused her in their home. Because of this, many individuals
believe that her death was caused by the injuries she got from her abusive
husband. In fact, women who reveal their domestic ill-treatment to the public
are often threatened by their abusers and sometimes seriously wounded. Sungura
(1998:60) maintains that women who share out their domestic violence with third
parties may be at increased risk of domestic violence. Matundu (2007) finds
that some women believe that leaking out the family issues to friends and
relatives brings the victim to lose her traditional value and belief of being a
real woman committed to the unity of her home. Women's fear and reluctance to
put outside the violence they witness in their homes favours their abusers to
commit more violence and so this spreads domestic violence in the area.
Although the beliefs of the interviewees were very clear about domestic
violence, most of them acknowledged the danger that a family member,
particularly the woman runs by revealing to the public the abuse she lives in
her home but at the same time, there was a lot of fear and anxiety among men to
be publicly labelled as abusers. To Meel (2005:211), the panic of being
publicly pointed at as a family members' abuser explains that men commit
domestic violence where there is no rigid law that can enforce the ban on
family violence.
