Movement launched to tackle domestic violence

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

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The death of Steve Ghany Ju­nior has sparked a move­ment in­volv­ing a for­mer Jus­tice Min­is­ter, a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and an at­tor­ney aimed at tak­ing back so­ci­ety, by em­pow­er­ing abused women, build­ing stronger men and push­ing for greater po­lice pro­tec­tion for vic­tims.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence on Fri­day, a day af­ter Ghany’s fu­ner­al, for­mer Jus­tice Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har said the ini­tia­tive goes be­yond the high pro­file case in­volv­ing his client, the woman who con­fessed to fa­tal­ly shoot­ing Ghany.

“This is not a spon­ta­neous re­sponse,” Ra­mad­har said. “We have a du­ty to en­sure we do things that make this coun­try safer and hap­pi­er. Do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is at the core of one of the most im­por­tant is­sues we speak about, but nev­er tru­ly deal with.”

While de­clin­ing to dis­cuss de­tails of the case, he de­scribed his client as hav­ing en­dured “the most hor­ri­ble of ag­o­nies”, adding that she now needs time to heal with her fam­i­ly.

Ra­mad­har stressed the broad­er na­tion­al cri­sis, warn­ing that do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is of­ten mis­un­der­stood and root­ed in deep­er so­ci­etal fail­ures.

“Re­al men love, Re­al men pro­tect, Re­al men care,” he said. “We have to re­de­fine mas­culin­i­ty. This idea of be­ing brutish and con­trol­ling, that is not man­hood, that is fail­ure.”

He added that many per­pe­tra­tors are them­selves prod­ucts of vi­o­lent and un­sta­ble homes. “Some of the abusers I have de­fend­ed re­gret every­thing. But they grew up in en­vi­ron­ments of vi­o­lence, of no love. If we fix that, we fix much of this prob­lem.”

Clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Dr Vali­ni Pan­dit said pub­lic dis­course con­tin­ues to fail vic­tims by ask­ing the wrong ques­tions.

“The ques­tion is not ‘why didn’t she leave?’” Pan­dit said. “The ques­tion is ‘what made it un­safe for her to leave?’ Leav­ing is of­ten the most dan­ger­ous mo­ment in an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship.”

She de­scribed do­mes­tic vi­o­lence as a pat­tern of con­trol, not on­ly phys­i­cal abuse but al­so emo­tion­al, fi­nan­cial and psy­cho­log­i­cal dom­i­na­tion.

“Vic­tims are not sim­ply choos­ing to stay,” she ex­plained. “They are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing trau­ma bond­ing, a psy­cho­log­i­cal sur­vival re­sponse where fear and re­lief be­come in­ter­twined.”

Pan­dit warned that with­out prop­er un­der­stand­ing, so­ci­ety risks fur­ther harm. “Un­der­stand­ing saves lives, Judg­ment costs them.”

She called for ex­pand­ed men­tal health sup­port, pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion, adding that do­mes­tic vi­o­lence must be treat­ed as a pub­lic health and so­ci­etal cri­sis.

Pres­i­dent of the South­ern As­sem­bly of Lawyers, Saira Lakhan, brought a le­gal per­spec­tive, high­light­ing sys­temic fail­ures in en­force­ment.

“A pro­tec­tion or­der can be­come a dec­o­ra­tive piece of pa­per if it is not en­forced,” Lakhan said. “Vic­tims go to po­lice sta­tions and are turned away, ig­nored or not tak­en se­ri­ous­ly.”

Cit­ing da­ta, she said there were over 33,000 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­ports be­tween 2010 and 2024, in­clud­ing more than 400 do­mes­tic re­lat­ed mur­ders.

“That tells us this is not iso­lat­ed, it is en­trenched,” she said. “And when vic­tims are more com­fort­able telling doc­tors than po­lice, we have a se­ri­ous con­fi­dence prob­lem.”

Lakhan al­so point­ed to cul­tur­al norms that nor­malise abuse. “We con­done too much, jeal­ousy, con­trol, ver­bal abuse, un­til it be­comes crim­i­nal.”

The trio said their ini­tia­tive will fo­cus on schools, tar­get­ing pre­teen and teenage chil­dren be­fore harm­ful be­hav­iours be­come in­grained.

“We are vol­un­teer­ing our­selves,” Ra­mad­har said. “We will go in­to schools, com­mu­ni­ties, re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions, wher­ev­er we are need­ed, to teach val­ues, to teach re­spect, to teach what a healthy re­la­tion­ship looks like.”

He added that the move­ment would al­so ad­dress per­pe­tra­tors, not on­ly vic­tims.

“If we fix the abuser, we pre­vent the abuse,” he said. “This re­quires ed­u­ca­tion, ac­count­abil­i­ty and in­ter­ven­tion long be­fore the courts be­come in­volved.”

Call­ing for a na­tion­al shift, Ra­mad­har urged cit­i­zens to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty with­in their own cir­cles.

“We are our broth­er’s keep­er, We are our sis­ter’s keep­er,” he said. “If we do not re­store stan­dards in this so­ci­ety, we will con­tin­ue to see these tragedies.”

He added: “We can­not fix the past, But to­day, we can be­gin build­ing a bet­ter to­mor­row.”