Centre attributes domestic violence to family upbringing
Centre attributes domestic violence to family upbringing
By Mustapha Sumaila
Violence
Abuja, May 27, 2018 (NAN) The International Centre for Advocacy on Right to Health (ICARH) has attributed the new face of domestic violence in the country to poor family upbringing.
The Litigation Officer of the centre, Mr Martin Chiaha, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja that rising cases of domestic violence, most especially against males by females, was alarming.
Chiaha was reacting to a survey conducted by NAN on the new trend of domestic violence where men were been battered, beaten and sometimes killed by their spouses or girl friends.
He explained that many young ladies who came from irresponsible homes where their fathers were beaten by their mothers, also practice that in their homes thinking it was normal.
“A woman who was raised in a home where her mother assault or beats her father would usually think it’s a norm to maltreat husbands/men,” the lawyer said.
He said that sometime, when women discovered that they were physically stronger than their husbands, it pushes them to maltreat the men with frequent assaults.
“When the man is abusing the woman to the extent that she’s been pushed to the wall she could overreact in a violent manner which might involve use of weapons.
“A man who does not provide for the family needs but rather spend outside stands the chance of domestic violence from the wife.
“When a man is in the habit of not performing his conjugal duties but constantly denies the wife of that right she might develop hatred and harm him,” Chiaha however explained.
A retired civil servant, Mr Mathew Adeika, who described the new trend as an ugly development, said that most of young women were into drugs unknowingly to their spouses.
Adeika said that women addiction to hard drugs was one of the reasons their husbands suffered in their hands by often beating and battering them.
According to him, after taking the drugs, they will be high, lose their senses and then behave in dangerous manner.
He commended the Federal Government for banning the manufacture, sale and consumption of codeine, which was being abused by both sexes, in the country.
From Umuahia, Dr Anthony Agbazuere, a human rights activist and constitutional lawyer, has recommended measures, including patience and tolerance, to check the rising cases of domestic violence in Nigeria.
Agbazuere told NAN that “married couples should learn to be tolerant of each other.
“They should understand that they were not born of the same parents,” he said, adding that “even people born of the same parents do not have the same character”.
He further urged married couples to always bear in mind that the choice to become husband and wife was entirely theirs and not by compulsion from any quarters.
Agbazuere also charged couples “to be ready at all times to reconcile their differences themselves,” adding that extended families should restrain themselves from unnecessary meddlesomeness.
“Extended families should allow married couples to handle their differences but should only interfere when invited.”
He also enjoined men to learn to live a responsible life and devote quality time to their families.
“Men should desist from moving from the office to the bar, spend all the day there and return home by midnight and begin to bicker with their wives.
“Men should also reserve a greater percentage of their income for the upkeep of their family,” he advised.
Besides, Agbazuere advised married women to desist from “comparing their husbands with other men”.
He said that it was wrong and provocative when women challenge and compare their lowly-placed husbands with relatively better-placed, wealthy and flamboyant men.
Also speaking, a retired broadcaster, Mr Peter Okorie, said the phenomenon could also be a carryover from a quarrelsome parental background.
Okorie said that a man or woman from a quarrelsome and violent parent had the tendency to carry the trait into his or her marital home.
“On the contrary, when either couple or both come from a peace-loving parental background, it translates to a peaceful marital home.”
He also said that the rate of domestic violence might have been aggravated by uncontrollable disagreements that often arise when a couple run joint bank account.
He said that the phenomenon could also arise when a couple belongs to different religious denominations with conflicting doctrines and philosophies.
He said that the contest for superiority had wrecked many families, leaving many fatal cases in the trail.
Okorie, a Knight of St. Mulumba, said that the council had always intervened in many domestic crises, and identified parental interferences, economic hardship and influences from friends and relations among the factors that fuel domestic violence.
On his part, Mr Christopher Joseph, a political leader in Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of the state, attributed the increasing cases of domestic violence to frustration.
“The domestic violence we are experiencing on a monthly basis – of wives killing their husbands – is borne out of frustration from declining finances, work places and the home itself.
“Some women, who feel that they have been confined to the home of a particular man, often go through frustration.
“They usually feel psychologically depressed and often take extreme actions to express their depression.”
Joseph therefore urged the government to introduce measures to alleviate the economic hardship in the country in order to reduce the rate of frustration among citizens. (NAN)
Reporters/MS/MST
Edited by Muhammad Suleiman Tola