Wife-beating being ignored, say women cops

ASPs say police station staff must be trained to deal with family disputes.

LAHORE:

Female police officers have called for all officers at police stations to be trained to deal with complaints of domestic abuse, as right now most such cases were left unaddressed.

Police rarely register cases of domestic abuse when they are approached by women. A station house officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said this was because the police felt that the matter would likely be settled within the family, so there was no point getting caught up in it.

“They come to the police station complaining about their husbands so they can vent their frustrations,” he said. “Sometimes it is quite clear she has been the victim of violence, but we don’t advise them to prosecute their husbands under the law. How is that bad if it saves a family?”

ASP Syeda Zahida Bokhari, the Sarwar Road sub divisional police officer (SDPO), said that the law wasn’t very clear about how to deal with incidents of domestic abuse, so cases were usually not registered.

“If a woman wants to lodge a case of domestic abuse, she better have plenty of wounds and bruises to show or she won’t be listened to,” she said. “Usually the most that officers can do is to scare the attacker and discourage him from doing it again.”

She said that a few days ago she had received a complaint from a man that his maid servant was being beaten by her husband. “But our hands are tied by the law and there was no justice for that tortured woman,” she said.

Shaista Rehman, an assistant superintendent of police (ASP) and the Sabzazar SDPO, said it was true that most family cases were settled internally, but the women still had a constitutional right to legal protection.

Both ASPs said that police officers needed better training and more places were needed where women could make complaints. Currently there are only four complaint centres for women at the city’s police stations: at Sabzazar police station in Saddar Division, at Lytton Road police station in Civil Lines Division, at North Cantonment police station in Cantonment Division, and at Shahdara police station in City Division. There are no such centres for women in Iqbal Town Division or Model Town Division

ASP Rehman said that this was not enough. “Four [centres] is really not enough because after fraud and land grabbing, most complaints are family-related,” she said.

She added that there was little point in appointing the ASPs at the four centres since ultimately, whether the complaint would be registered or not was up to the SHO.

She said that the staff strength at women’s complaint cells should be increased and improved. She said that the presence of female police at the station encouraged women complainants to come forward.

ASP Bokhari said that police personnel, especially station house officers and muharrars (clerks) should be given training in how to deal with family issues. She said that women felt that their grievances were not being addressed at any platform.

However, she added that she had visited the Race Course police station for women and the situation there was just as bad, even though the station was staffed by female officers.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2011.