Abuse

Many who don’t recognize the name Bibi Aisha, but they should.  She is the teen who appeared on the cover of Time magazine two years ago when her father-in-law cut off her nose and ears because she tried to run away from her abusive in-laws. A recent article in that magazine reported that the man who did this act is free now and only spent six months in jail.  No one else involved in her mutilation had any kind of punishment.  Apparently it is typical for Afghanistan that the man would go free after committing such a horrible act against a woman.

Women have been suffering at the hands of abusive husbands for as long as time has existed.  In the United States though, if a man were to do that to a women, he would be given a slightly harder sentance and I am sure the other inmates in there would find some way to make his life miserable.  At least in this country there is some regard for women, but is there?  Considering the War on Women that is being waged these days it is a wonder that there is any regard at all for the “fairer sex”.  But this is not about that.  This is about domestic violence and the horrible situation it causes for everyone around, not just the woman dealing with it.

There should be no excuse for Domestic Violence, as the bumper sticker says.  But women all over this world accept all kinds of excuses for being treated no better than a dog and in many countries have no recourse.  While we here have some help, often the help offered is little more than reassurance that it won’t happen again and very often the woman has to leave with no more than the clothes on her back in order to get away.  I know, I’ve been there and I can tell you it is not a pretty place to be.  The one thing we can do is to work with women in this situation and help them overcome it because in many cases they feel deserving of that kind of treatment.  Furthermore we need to raise a generation of women who won’t take it in the first place.  Without the future we will be stuck in the past; a past where violence against women is an accepted thing.