DON'T CONCEAL CASES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (PAGE 11, FEB 5, 2011)

THE Northern Regional Population Officer, Chief Issahaku Amadu Alhassan has cautioned opinion leaders and family heads in the region against interference in the handling of cases involving domestic violence.
According to him, helping to conceal cases of domestic abuse amounted to promoting crime and also emboldens the abusers to repeat such acts with impunity.
Chief Alhassan gave the warning when he addressed a male-dominated forum organised by the Department of Women to discuss ways of reducing gender-based violence in the region.
Mr Alhassan noted that persons who interfered in cases of domestic abuse were helping to promote such illegal acts instead of helping to curb it.
“If you prevent a case from being reported to the appropriate institution for redress, then you are telling the abusers that each time they act that way, you would intervene to keep them away from prosecution,” he stated.
Chief Alhassan also encouraged the men to adopt practices that would help prevent the occurrence of domestic violence, such as family planning, spousal communication and joint decision making.
He explained that family planning was one way to help decrease the incidence of domestic violence because it enabled men to have a sizeable family which they can manage.
He said when men fail to plan their families, they end up giving birth to many children and therefore are unable to cater for the needs of all of them because their incomes are too meagre to meet such needs.
“This leads to child neglect and non-maintenance, which are all forms of domestic violence,” Chief Alhassan noted.
He again mentioned that marrying many wives when one did not have the financial muscle to cater for all of them was a sure way to becoming an irresponsible husband.
The population officer also urged men in the region to respect the political and decision-making rights of their wives.
He said women had the right to join political parties of their choice and participate in governance to enable them contribute positively to the development of their communities.
The participants expressed regret that men had been tugged as abusers because many cases of domestic abuse reported had men as the abusers, whiles women and children were the victims.
They noted that some of the women were the cause of such acts meted on them because they were irresponsible in their speech and actions.
The participants however admitted that irrespective of the actions of their wives, they had no right under the law to abuse their wives and were rather supposed to seek redress when they felt abused by their wives.
Some of them also observed that the cultural environment they found themselves in made it difficult for them to report to the police when they are abused by their wives.
They explained that women were perceived to be the weaker sex and so society was fast to brand men who were abused by their wives as weak and not fit to be man.
“And no man would like to be seen as a weak man, so he is compelled to try to discipline the wife, thereby leading to domestic abuse,” one of the participants stated.