Behind closed doors
For many Macau families, domestic violence is a brutal reality.
Rehearsing for a school play a teacher asks a group of Macau kindergarten students to role play dinner time at home.
A little girl sets about preparing the meal and laying the table. Suddenly, a boy storms into the room and yells, “Where’s my dinner?”. She happily puts a plate in front of him, he glares at it and screams as he sends the plate flying across the room.
By now, the teacher is in shock, the children are numb and the little girl is crying. The headmaster phones the mother of the boy, she is mortified when told what happened. The family is referred to a counsellor and the mother reveals she has been the victim of domestic violence for more than five years.
“The affect that it had on the child was just terrible,” the teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, says. “This happened many years ago but it is something that in all my years teaching that I will never forget. The boy was just acting what he was used to seeing and this type of thing happening is not uncommon.”
Ask the experts and they will all tell you that domestic violence transcends gender, age and class boundaries. Professional, highly educated people are just as likely to end up in violent relationships as those living in poverty. The wealthier might have the option of seeking help from private counselling services, while others turn to crisis hotlines or refuges. Many rely on family and friends for help and then there are those, like the little boy’s mother, who suffer in silence. Statistics show the majority of people in Macau who seek help for domestic violence are women.
Sister Juliana Devoy, director of Macau’s Good Shepherd Centre which serves women in crisis, says there are a multitude of factors that can lead to domestic violence. Poverty, extra-marital affairs, gambling, alcoholism and mental health are some of the major contributing factors. Sister Juliana has worked in Macau for 18 years and has seen women who have been burnt, had their hair ripped out, attacked with knives and many who have been beaten so badly their bodies were left covered in bruises.
The centre has places for up to 14 women and children, the majority who seek help are Chinese, followed by Filipino. Each year the centre houses about 60 women and children in crisis. Sister Juliana says that due to skyrocketing rents and a critical shortage in affordable housing in Macau, the centre is turning away more women and children than ever before.
“Housing is a major issue, it is very unfair that in most cases the women have to leave the house with almost nothing,” Sister Juliana explains. “We have had some people here for more than a year because of the housing situation, they have nowhere else to go and I can’t just kick them out. In the past it was easier to get housing, now the housing department can’t cope with the number of requests they have. The government was not prepared for the influx of population and the number of people who need this type of housing.”
In the panicked decision to escape, furniture removal doesn’t usually cross many victims’ minds. The majority leave with at most a suitcase, or nothing. If a woman wants to apply for public housing she must relinquish any claim to the family home or she will not be eligible for consideration. The waiting lists are long and there is no guarantee, even if the application is supported by a social worker or women’s refuge, that it will be accepted.
The Women’s General Association of Macau runs a shelter, Lai Yuen, which offers places for about thirty women and children. The number of people admitted to the government-funded shelter grew from 56 in the last six months of 2005, to 89 in 2006 and 119 last year. Of the 119 victims in 2007, more than half were women and the rest children. Social worker Yen Kan says there are many hurdles women face in an effort to escape an abusive relationship. An in-take survey conducted last year found that 75.4 per cent of victims fear leaving will have a negative effect on their children, 63.1 per cent believe the abuser will change and 61.5 per cent fear losing their home. There is no doubt the emotional tug of keeping the family together is often a woman’s strongest instinct. In between episodes of violence, many perpetrators can be incredibly charming. “We all think, ‘If he is nice today, maybe he will be nice tomorrow - maybe he won’t hurt me again’,” one victim explains. “No woman wants to see her family broken up and it can be very confusing about what is the right thing to do.” This is evident in the number of women who make return visits to Lai Yuen. Ms Kan says there have been cases of some women returning to the shelter up to four times.
reserving the family unit is not the only reason women stay in violent relationships. Fear is also a motivating factor. Sister Juliana points to the lack of legal protection in Macau as a major problem for many victims. “There is no such thing as a restraining order, the husband might be warned but there is nothing on paper to say he has to stay away. In the eyes of the law domestic violence is a different category, if it is a member of your family it is not considered the same as if you just go up to somebody in the street and assault them,” she says. “In other parts of the world they have better laws than we do. Many women in Macau feel they have no protection and its true, I don’t care what they say, the reality is they don’t have any protection.”
A government spokesman refutes this, saying restraining orders are available but are granted on a case by case basis and at the discretion of a judge. He says if a person is feeling threatened, harassed or intimidated they can take action through the courts. President of the general assembly of the Macau Civil Servants Association Rita Botelho dos Santos says the lack of legal protection for women in Macau is a major concern. Speaking at a public lecture on International Women’s Day hosted by Macau Inter-University Institute (IIUM) last month, Ms Santos expressed concern about women’s rights in the region. “It is indeed not so complete [legal protection] and something we need to work on,” Ms Santos says. “There is a lot of work to be done for protection of women’s rights in Macau and we need to convince the government to tackle these many social problems that are being raised.”
Ms Santos chaired the lecture series that looked at everything from women in slavery to sex workers and domestic violence. Speakers included vice-president of the Women’s General Association of Macau Un Hoi Ching, IIUM Associate Professor Isabel Morais, vice-president of the International Ladies Club of Macau Fran Thomas and Sister Juliana. All agreed more needed to be done to protect women on a range of different fronts.
For many victims of domestic violence dialing 999 is the first step to getting help and for others it is calling an anonymous helpline. Caritas Macau operates a 24-hour Hotline Service which receives about 8200 calls a year, of which about 200 are domestic violence related. Coordinator of the service Raymond Pun says the majority of calls are from women who have been “hurt by their husbands”. Mr Pun says the numbers are not reflective of the whole problem as many people do not seek help. “When it comes to domestic violence, the main concerns are the need for community education to help the victims face their problem,” he says. “It needs the cooperation of all the government departments from the police, to social welfare and hospitals.”
According to Mr Pun the incidents of domestic violence in Macau are increasing because many people are doing shift work and there is little time for “open communication”. “There may be problems in the family and they do not know how to deal with them which may lead to domestic violence,” he says. “Victims in Chinese society may not want to voice their problems.” All of the welfare services spoken to by Closer report a link between domestic violence and gambling. Ms Kan reports cases of abusers having gambling addictions and several where the victims were the problem gamblers.
Ms Kan and Sister Juliana agree that traditional Chinese culture can make it exceptionally hard for women to seek help. This can be due to their position in the family or a wish to maintain a good public image. “As everybody knows domestic violence is a universal problem all over the world, it is not limited to one culture or one social class,” Sister Juliana explains. “The one thing I can say is that many of the cases we have encountered where the families are coming from mainland China is the mentality of the men is very much a mentality that the wife belongs to him and he can do what he wants to them, it is a very traditional, conservative and macho approach. Often it is hard to deal with some of these men and bring about a hopeful reconciliation because in most cases they do not recognise that they are at fault. They do not have any insight into why they use violence to solve their problems or think that this is something they shouldn’t be doing. If they have some awareness, many will not admit it. Generally in the culture the problems of the family stay in the family, so for the women to go outside that and bring their problem to other people is not encouraged.”
Ms Kan says even when women do seek help, many are encouraged to stay with the abuser. “Perfect family is usually the main centre in Chinese tradition, they usually ignore the personal needs,” she says. “Therefore, when the battered women ask for help, professionals or even their relatives will tell them to forgive and tolerate the abuser. Those battered women do not know where to ask for help and it enhances the violence as well.”
Figures from the government Social Action Institute (SAI) show the number of reported domestic violence cases in Macau more than doubled in the past five years. The cases grew from 45 in 2003 to 110 in 2007. The majority of victims were women, followed by children and there were a small number of cases of men and elderly people being abused. All of
the experts agree the official figures are not a true representation of the problem, as many cases go unreported. British family care activist Erin Pizzey, who started the world’s first women’s refuge in London in 1971, has long campaigned that men are just as much victims of domestic violence as women. Pizzey, who was born in China and lived in Macau in the 1940s, is now a best-selling author. Speaking to Closer from her UK home, she says the root of “all violence in our societies lie within the family”. “Violence is a learned pattern of behaviour in early childhood and unfortunately a high percentage of people who have been exposed to parental violence and sexual abuse go on to repeat the patterns,” she explains. “The incidence of domestic violence will continue to rise in relationship to the figures for family breakdown.”
Pizzey now campaigns on behalf of male victims of domestic violence. Her many books include Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear, which has been turned into a television film. The 68-year-old points out that the latest British Crime Figures reveal that violence is equal in intimate partner relationships. She believes refuges are a failure because they ignore the needs of men. “They refuse to allow men to work in the refuge movement and to sit on the committees that make discussions about refuges,” she says. “The feminist movement hi-jacked the domestic violence movement in 1974 because they had no funding and no just cause. They have used billions of pounds internationally to demonize and abuse men. The result has been bitter hostility between men and women and the breakdown of marriage. All governments must immediately stop the abuse of men and boys and return to the truth which is that domestic violence has never been a gender issue and everyone in the family can become a victim.”
Sister Juliana says she has no doubt that some men in Macau are victims of domestic violence. “We have not seen these cases as this is a women’s crisis centre, but I am sure they exist,” she says. “I am sure women can exasperate a problem by demeaning the man and putting him down- I have no doubt this happens all the time.” The IAS figures reveal there were two reported cases of husbands being abused in 2005 , three in 2006 and one last year. This compares to 44 women in 2005 and 52 in both 2006 and 2007.
Ms Kan and Sister Juliana agree that domestic violence creates a cycle of family violence that can be extremely difficult to break. “We have seen in the shelter that some children who have seen or experienced domestic violence, might tend to use violence to solve problems,” Ms Kan says. “We have found that there are some abusers who are also from abusive families.”
Education and public awareness campaigns are at the root of trying to prevent domestic violence in Macau. IAS funded the making of a television series in 2006, To Escape, dealing with the issue. Grants are also provided to private institutions to run programs aimed at combating abuse in the home. There were 11 programs funded in 2006 and more than 10,000 people attended. The Good Shepherd Centre has been working on its own program aimed at promoting non-violent communication and Lai Yuen runs a 24 Hour Woman Hotline and group counselling sessions.
“We do try to do educational things for the public to prevent domestic violence before it gets to the stage of someone needing our help,” Sister Juliana explains. “We started a program last year aimed at healthy problem solving, it’s called Non-violent Communication. It comes from the US and it’s more than a skills training, it’s a whole way of living. We hope in the coming year to develop that more and get it out to the community.”
Ms Kan says it is important for people to realise that domestic violence is not just a personal problem, but a serious social issue. She says ways to combat it include further education of the public and people dealing with victims, establishing intervention services to teach appropriate problem solving and dealing with the psychological needs of victims and abusers. Changes to the legal system are also being called for to speed up divorce proceedings and ensure women are better protected from abusers. Ms Kan says victims need access to housing, financial support and the government should establish a halfway dormitory to help people who have made the decision to leave.
