Finding solutions: Highlighting cause of violence against women

Dr Vasay Batley says we should teach our daughters to earn respect

KARACHI: The root cause of all violence against women is their weakness, said Dr Vasay Batley while delivering a lecture on ‘Violence on Women’ at the Pakistan American Cultural Center on Friday evening.

“If women make themselves strong, it won’t happen,” he said. “When we tell our daughters to give respect, we should also teach them to earn respect.”

Batley is a doctor, who has been associated with the medical profession for 32 years and, currently, is with the United Medical and Dental College. As part of his thesis, he has conducted a survey on incidents and causes of hospital admissions sourcing from domestic violence in residential areas of Karachi.

At the start of his lecture, Dr Batley shared two cases of domestic violence that he came across. Both cases involved pupils from the medical profession, thus disregarding the notion that such cases do not happen in well-to-do, educated families. He said that in Pakistan, violence against women is on an extreme scale. He cited dowry deaths, honour killings, eve-teasing, forced abortions, force-feeding, forced pregnancy and human trafficking as types of violence that happen in our society.

“Violence is not just physical,” said Dr Batley. “Emotional traumas, parental alienation, withholding of finances, stalking, manipulating and control are all forms of emotional violence.”

Batley said the absence of women shelters and the apathy of law enforcement agencies made matters worse in cases of domestic violence. “Help should be sought through either social pressure or legal aid,” he said. “The biggest mistake that women make is [that they do] not tell others. If it happens again, women should tell a confidante and seek help from human rights lawyers.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2016.