Thursday February 11th
2010
The main part of the day was the
lesson on domestic violence at the Wildflowers Centre. This is a refuge for women who are pregnant
or already mothers, and victims of abuse.
The lesson was outside under the shelter of a bamboo pavilion. Nine women attended, three with their
babies. Kristen began by having the
group lower a dowel with just finger contact.
The translator asked them how they found lowering the dowel and keeping
the contact. Then Kristen explained that
they each had a genie and needed to choose a single wish each. Some women chose to remain with their
children or to have a happy family. One
chose for a successful future for her son.
I chose languages, to understand how to communicate more and Kristen
chose for more money!
The outline of the declaration of
human rights was interesting. Some women
had heard of the declaration and most assumed that Thailand had not signed the
agreements. Two or three women were able
to read the handout that Kristen had had translated, which was good. The information on the protection under Thai
law and the terms of sentence was listened to in silence until one woman
suggested that if a man had money, the 8000 baht fine would be a pittance and
merely an inconvenience rather than a punishment.
At this point, three women acted
out a role play with a mini script: a young couple at a party meet a challenge
to their relationship when she goes up to admire the car of another guy. Jealousy sets in and the boyfriend starts to
display ownership and control of his girlfriend…I found it interesting that the
women laughed at the aggressive behavior they modeled and then explained that
they thought this was just a bad day.
Kristen managed to clarify the confusing Thai law which sees a husband
or a boyfriend as a member of the family, and to distinguish between abuse and
bad behavior.
The introduction over with, the
lesson moved into defining domestic violence.
Actually, the brain storming was very tentative, with the women
responding to the question with words such as:
pulling, pushing, throwing objects and then discussing whether these
were in fact correct examples of domestic violence. The women were then told about the categories
of domestic violence, whilst Don translated into Thai. Thereafter, we prepared the tables with a
sorting reading activity which was completed very well by the women in two
separate groups. We took time to check the
answers and to clarify the examples of emotional abuse and to distance other
examples of bad behavior from abuse. The
extension part of this activity was to elicit a response as to which two forms
of abuse women are not protected to under the law: economic and sexual (there
is a rape law, but this law is to be covered under a separate lesson). The women strongly believe that if they are
in a relationship the man should provide for their child, equally they believe
that if they stay at home all day, they should be entitled to money. This was noted and the two examples of
domestic violence: abuse of authority and economic control will be further
developed by the support workers and social worker at Wildflowers.
In the next part of the lesson,
the discussion centered on how to report domestic violence. This was problematic because many women have
experienced domestic violence in isolated hill tribe communities and within
family structures with repeated patterns of abuse. We discussed what the police could do to
protect them and suggested that if they felt police protection was inadequate,
they should at least attempt to report it.
Kristen made the point well that if an offender came to be prosecuted,
within 6 months he could be out of prison ready to reoffend. So the issue of patterns of abuse was
introduced in a focused manner.
Kristen asked the women to
reflect on patterns of abuse, which they were able to do well. The women then acted out a role play which
explored issues of abuse including, making up and guilt.
In the final part of the lesson,
we discussed whether protection from domestic violence would be better in the
city or in a rural location.
Surprisingly, most women felt that they would be better protected in
their rural communities. We discussed
why and then we talked to them about a rally to promote awareness of domestic
violence, which was held in Bangkok last week.
The women looked at the photograph from the Bangkok Post and discussed
the issue amongst themselves.
In conclusion, the women thanked
us for the lesson and then we explained that there would be a break for two
weeks before the next visit. We set a
small homework task which was translated into Thai. The task is to make 8 cubes out of paper and
to draw on windows, a door and a roof.
The women will then write on words that balance and correct the forms of
domestic abuse, for example: threats – support.
The start of the next lesson will be a small presentation on how to
build successful relationships.
The day finished with watching
the human rights film, Bomb Harvest outside on the lawn. The film showed the work of a group of
demolition workers (one Aussie and one Yorkshireman) and their mission to train
the local mechanics, no mean machines, to destroy 9 bombs in Laos in a
week. I calculated that according to the
statistics, there are approximately 180,000 undetonated cluster bombs remaining
around the schools, villages and largely communities
