Presented
at International Conference on Conflict Resolution: Peace and Development
on 28-29 October, 2003 organised by BIRLA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY &
SCIENCE,
Pilani,
Rajasthan, India
Introduction
Imbalances of
power in relationships, which could be social, political, or economic
lie at the root of most conflicts in our families, communities, in society
and in the world. Disempowerment,
violence, oppression, un-kept promises, and violations of agreements by the
powerful partner or party are the cause of many conflicts, and could become
consequences as well, leading to cycles,
spirals, and eventually a culture of violence.
Women are most
often the less powerful partners or parties in these conflicts.
History and current experiences show that women are also most vulnerable
to violence and oppression due to their subordinate status to men.
Women’s
basic rights have been violated in most of our recorded history. In times of war and peace, women have
experienced violence from the men in their lives and from the patriarchal
society in general. Pervasive
misconceptions and stereotyped views in our society relegate violence which
happens in homes or within relationships to a personal issue.
In
many societies, women are defined as inferior and the right to dominate them
is considered an essential aspect of being male. Violence against women takes place because the perpetrators
feel, and their environment encourages them to feel, that this is an acceptable
exercise of male prerogative, a legitimate and appropriate way to relieve
their own tension in conditions of stress, to sanction female behavior –
or just to enjoy the feeling of supremacy. [i]
It is only
in recent years that women’s rights have been accepted as human rights,
through the efforts of the women’s movement across all countries.
The affirmation of women’s rights as human rights are strategically
valuable because they express, in the broadest terms, basic values of human
dignity and social justice, which have been denied to women for centuries.
Yet women have always struggled and survived over their experiences of violence. In this
paper, I shall share with you how women survivors are recovering from the
effects of trauma due to violence in their lives and contributing towards
our understanding of conflict and ways to solving conflict.
Searching
for the Path to Recovery From Trauma
My interest
in finding paths to healing and recovery of traumatized people stems from
my own experiences from political oppression during the days of martial rule
in the Philippines.
While
the dictator Marcos was ousted
in 1986, many women and men who joined the ranks of freedom fighters during
the years of martial law soon learned that working for a non-violent society
will require much more work. At
the same time we have to deal with our own experiences and traumas from different
forms of violence.
Thus, I am
also a participant in the journey to wholeness which I am talking about in
this paper, which will have three main parts.
First,
in line with the theme of the Conference on the Impact of Conflicts on Women
and Children. [ii] I
will share the
findings of the 2002 Philippine Country Report on Violence Against Women in
general, and Abuse Of Women Intimate Relationships (AWIR) [iii]
in particular. Here, we looked at the statistics and in-depth studies and profiles available in the Philippines
that show the devastating effects
of violence on women’s physical, mental and psychological health.
The
second part will show the framework for recovery that I am developing together
with the women survivors of violence in an Action Research: on “Journey
to Empowerment of Survivors of Trafficking Through Conflict Resolution”: An earlier research study which
I did on “developing an ethic of caring for women survivors of violence”
provided the basis for the framework which we developed in our action research.
The third
part will describe ongoing efforts to develop strategies that will contribute
to the recovery of women survivors of abuse. This involved the conduct of conflict
resolution workshops which I shall briefly describe here.
Violence
Against Women: Definition, Causes and Effects
Violence against women is prevalent in
a society where there is an unequal balance of power between men, and woman
and children, thus creating social
conditions that tolerate abuses against women. Abuse of women has become a part of the “normal order
“ of things in most societies, including the Philippines.
In 1948, a world shocked
by the horrors of man’s brutality welcomed the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, which reaffirmed ‘faith in fundamental
human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, (and) in
the equal rights of men and women”.
Since then, women continued to be treated as less human and without
dignity in many countries of the world.
It
was not until 1979 that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was adopted.
The Convention essentially constitutes the international bill of rights of women, called on ::“State Parties to)condemn
discrimination against women
in all forms, agree to pursue by all appropriate means and without
delay a policy of eliminating discrimination against women…” Discrimination against women was
defined to mean any distinction,
exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or
purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise
by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of
men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political,
economic, social cultural, civil
or any other field. [iv]
The CEDAW did not specifically discuss violence
against women. In recognition
of its prevalence, the UN General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Elimination
of Violence Against Women (DEVAW) in 1993.
According to Article
2 of the Declaration, violence against women (VAW) shall be
understood to encompass, but not to be limited to, the following:
a)
Physical, sexual
and psychological violence occurring in the family, including battering, sexual
abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital
rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to
women, non-spousal violence and violence related to exploitation;
b)
Physical, sexual and psychological violence
occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual
harassment and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere,
trafficking in women and forced prostitution;
c)
Physical, sexual and psychological violence
perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs.
The Declaration
on the Elimination of Violence Against Women calls on all governments to :
develop in a comprehensive way, preventive approaches and all those measures
of a legal, political, administrative and cultural nature that promote the
protection of women against any form of violence, and ensure that the re-victimization
of women does not occur because of gender-insensitive
laws, enforcement practices or other interventions. [v]
.
In
the same year, the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna
declared that “women’s rights are human rights.”
Forty-five years after the acceptance that human beings have basic
rights; women were finally recognized as human beings, equally deserving of basic rights. Yet these international agreements and
instruments remain to be implemented
in many countries of the world.
Violence
Against Women: The Silent Epidemic
Violence
against women remains to be a social malady that is difficult to name, and
speak about in Philippine society and in the world.
Yet the problem is so prevalent and serious, prompting feminist medical
experts to call it a “silent epidemic.”
In
the Philippines, even the government agencies that collect statistics, can
not tell how many women endure violence within their lives, whether inside
the home or not. The
National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB)
stated that society in general and families, in particular, consider domestic
problems and difficulties as private affairs and they are not likely to report
these events. The stigma attached to domestic violence
discourages victims and their families from reporting these incidence to authorities. [vi]
In October
2002, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the World Report on Violence
and Health, the first comprehensive, global review of current knowledge on
violence. Its findings show that nearly half the women who die due to homicide are killed
by their current or former husband or boyfriend. In fact violence accounts for approximately
7% of all deaths among women aged 16-44 worldwide. [vii]
The
report also showed that, in some countries, up to 69% of women reported having
been physically assaulted and up to 47% of women reported that their first sexual intercourse was forced . [viii]
The findings of our “Philippine Country
Report: Baseline Study on Abuse
of Women in Intimate Relationships” revealed that physical injuries, rape and wife battery were
the most reported forms of VAW.
The most common forms of physical violence were: beating that included slapping, boxing,
punching, choking, head banging, hair pulling and kicking, beating with the
use of blunt objects that included belt, baseball bat, wooden stick, etc,.
tying the hands, feet, strangulation;
and throwing hot/cold liquid at the survivor.
The
physical effects of abuse include various types of minor and serious injuries
to the body, including death The most common effects of
physical abuse were:
Ø
Physical
Injuries (cuts, lacerations, gunshots and bolo wounds, bruises, contusions,
retinal hemorrhage, hematomas, black eyes, skull cracks)
Ø
Muscular/Body pains
(arthritis, joint pains)
Ø
Migraines, headaches
Ø
Chills, fever, infection
Ø
Broken teeth and
bones, fractured jaws
There are other
perceived consequences to the women’s physical health:
Ø
Heart problems (breathing
difficulties, chest pains palpitation)
Ø
Dizziness, vomiting
Ø
Weight Loss
Ø
Anemia, malnourishment
While
physical abuse should never be condoned or tolerated, the women respondents
in the report quoted above all said that the emotional trauma was the more
serious effect of abuse. Emotional
and psychological crippling, whether temporary or permanent, have been cited
as having the more critical debilitating effects on victims.
From their action research [ix]
involving more than 900 survivors, the Women’s
Crisis Center documented the perceived effects on mental health to include:
Ø
Fear, anxiety, nervousness
Ø
Depression, crying
spells
Ø
Loss of self esteem,
shame, guilt, lack of confidence
Ø
Anger, hostility
Ø
Sleeping disorders
(insomnia, hypersomnia, nightmares, bad/recurring dreams)
Ø
Self hatred, self
blaming
Ø
Death wish for abuser
Ø
Lethargy, passivity
Ø
Suicidal thoughts,
attempts
Ø
Eating disorders,
loss of appetite
Ø
Phobias (loud sounds,
darkness, heights, being alone)
Ø
Denial, minimizing
the experience
Ø
Mood swings
Ø
Lack of concentration,
short attention span
Ø
Selective memory,
memory loss
Ø
Self isolation
Ø
Shocked, numbness
(natulala)
Ø
Fear of intimacy,
attachment
Ø
Hypervigilance,
alertness (magugulatin)
Psychologists
have diagnosed these perceived effects as symptoms of post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD). There have been a number of studies done by feminist psychologists
which identify the trauma undergone by victims of domestic violence as similar
to that undergone by prisoners in captivity.
The symptoms of combat neurosis displayed by political prisoners or
prisoners of war, such as those in Vietnam, and in the Philippines, are the same as those of rape survivors
and battered women. [x]
Post
–Traumatic Stress Disorder
The findings
on the effects on women’s mental health show that women (and children)
survivors of trauma may eventually
be diagnosed for acute stress disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), one of the
dissociative disorders, or a personality disorder.
Dr. Courtois, a
psychiatrist who has extensively studied the effects of sexual abuse on children
and adults, states that existing theoretical models imply that traumatic events
eventually cause posttraumatic symptoms or reactions, although they are not
always problematic, severe, or long-lasting.
however, when the symptoms are of sufficient strength and duration,
they may meet criteria for a diagnosis of the above-mentioned disorders.”
[xi]
Post-traumatic
stress disorder was accepted by the medical community when it was introduced,
after long debates, in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic
and Statistica Manual in 1980 (DSM-III) According to the Manual, the essential feature of the
disorder is the development of characteristic symptoms following a particularly
distressing event that is outside the range of normal human experience and
that would be markedly distressing to almost anyone.
Feminist psychiatrists like Judith Herman
state that: “even the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder as
it is presently defined, does not fit accurately enough.
The existing diagnostic criteria for this disorder are derived mainly
from survivors of circumscribed traumatic events. They are based on the prototypes of combat, disaster, and rape.
In survivors of prolonged, repeated trauma, the symptom picture is
often more complex.” [xii]
Herman posits that
prolonged, repeated trauma such as that experienced by survivors of domestic
battering, should be called “complex post-traumatic stress disorder”
since the responses to trauma involve
a spectrum of conditions rather than a single disorder.
Personality changes have been observed to follow prolonged, repeated
trauma.[xiii]
Abused women within
the privacy of their homes and relationships are captives without prison bars, restrained not by chains,
but by threats, tortured not
so much by physical pain but by psychological trauma. But women who experience enslavement through
trafficking talk of being actually held captive in foreign lands [xiv],
physically and sexually abused any time by any number of men - for months
or years. Women victims of violence,
whether within the home or outside
are disempowered by a process which breaks down their autonomy, self-respect
and connection to the community.
A Framework for Recovery from Trauma
According to the analysis
of feminist psychiatrist Judith Herman, psychological trauma is an affliction
of the powerless. At the moment of trauma, due to a violent
act, like torture, rape, or battery, the victim is rendered helpless by overwhelming force. [xv]
Women
are traumatized and rendered powerless (disempowered) in a society that considers their oppression as “normal” [xvi]. Since the 1960s therapists like R.D. Laing,
Thomas Szasz and others have insisted that all emotional and psychological
problems affecting women and men were caused by society’s oppression.
However, feminist psychotherapist Betty McLellan says that there is
still not enough known about psychotic conditions which may be caused by chemical
imbalances. Presently, feminists agree
that most emotional and psychological problems affecting women are
rooted in oppression. [xvii]
Therefore, recovery for a woman who has
experienced trauma requires that she should be freed from
the oppressive situation and
become regain her personal power.
What
does the process of recovery and empowerment for a VAW survivor mean ?
According to Judith
Herman and other feminists, recovery is based upon the empowerment of the
survivor and the creation of new connections. She refers to empowerment as “the convergence of mutual
support and individual autonomy, where autonomy is
defined as 'a sense of separateness,
flexibility, self-possession, sufficient to define one’s self-interest
and make significant choices'.” [xviii]
Through in depth interviews
with seventeen women survivors of violence in my research
on the services that women needed
for their recovery; and workshops with around 25 women survivors of various
forms of sexual abuse, it became
very clear to me that before a VAW
victim can even start to really talk about her experience, she needs a safe
environment, where she is physically protected from her abuser. It is only
in such an environment where a VAW survivor will be willing and able to tell
her story. Thus finding safety and protection is an essential first step in
the journey to recovery.
While
it is possible that women who have high ability for coping
could have transformed an abusive relationship to one which is free
from abuse, I have not heard of documentation of such
cases in the Philippines and will not touch on that. The survivors I have met talked of nervous
breakdown, suicide attempts or
attempts to kill the abuser; cases of insanity and death have been
recorded, as shown in the studies on VAW quoted above.
According to Herman, reconstructing
the trauma story is an essential step in the recovery of the VAW survivor: The ordinary response to atrocities
is to ban them from consciousness Certain violations of
the world are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the
word unspeakable. [xix] Therefore the VAW/trauma survivor
must be able to reconstruct the trauma story, and mourn the loss of an old
self in order to create a new self.
The effort of reconstructing
her story actually transforms the traumatic memory,
so that it can be integrated into the survivor’s life story. [xx]
The women
survivors of violence say that the scars from “psychological wounds” caused by violence were more difficult to heal than the physical
wounds. They talked about their
sense of feeling “broken”, “the fragmented self” which
needed to be made whole again.
The VAW survivor who has not healed
her psychological wounds experiences a lot of self-conflicts.
Self-conflicts among VAW survivors are
the cause of so much frustration that could lead to destructive patterns
of behavior, which, when acted out,
lead to more frustration and lower self- esteem..
. The low self-esteem
that most survivors still hold for themselves continues to be reflected in
their everyday dealings with people, including their own support group members. The internal conflicts they have
suppressed in themselves also manifest in external conflicts . This becomes a hindrance in the recovery
process where restoring connections to others is a very important step.
Since the experience of being
powerless isolates the woman and disconnects her from friends, family and
society, restoring the connection between the survivor
and her community is essential for her recovery. Though for battered women who become physical captives
in their homes this is literally true, others experience disconnection mentally
and psychologically with the feeling that
“they have no one to turn to.”
In her renewed connections
with other people, the survivor re-creates the psychological faculties that
were damaged or deformed by the traumatic experience.
These faculties include the basic capacity for trust,
autonomy, initiative, competence, identity
and intimacy. [xxi]
In an Action Planning workshop
which was held last February, 2003, after the series of workshops on conflict
resolution (which I shall briefly describe below), around 25 women who have
experienced rape, prostitution and trafficking discussed and analyzed their
experiences. They agreed that the following framework for recovery was relevant
to their experience of recovery:
The
Journey to Recovery [xxii]
In
order to recover from the experience of trauma, a survivor of a violent experience
needs to be able to reconstruct and tell her story.
Only through this process, which could be very painful, can she finally
mourn her losses, accept that
something in her has died. Then
she can reclaim the fragmented self, and start leading a new life. At this point she is ready to re-integrate
to the community, and may choose to continue her healing process by helping
others in return.
We
are not saying that such a process, towards recovery is a linear and orderly
one. Yet persons working with trauma survivors recognize these stages.
Reconstruction of the trauma story is a critical step in the journey
towards personal healing. We
believe that being able to tell one’s story, whether orally, written
or both is an empowering act. For
the “wounded woman”,
it is a healing act.
Reclaiming
the Fragmented Self Through Conflict Resolution
Conflict arises within individuals when
the attainment of their needs, wants is frustrated, and the values dear to
them are violated. These individuals form a collective consciousness that breeds
conflict in the community, in
society, and in the world.
Conflicts within the self, if not
completely acknowledged and resolved can always come back . No matter how
one tries to bury one’s wounds and conflicts, they will just
resurface, causing further pain and confusion.
For survivors of violence, patterns
of self-destructive behavior may be already deeply embedded in the psyche,
and this can be manifested in external conflicts.
My search for models for healing trauma
and resolving conflicts brought me to India where I trained on Conflict Resolution
with the Asian Institute for Resolution of Conflict and Working for Peace
and Development (AIRCOD).
In 2002, an NGO working with women survivors
of violence invited me to work with them for the development of a training
workshop module on conflict resolution among the women survivors of violence;
after they heard that I was interested in piloting conflict resolution courses
in the Philippines. Around
25 women survivors of violence, participated in a series of workshops on “A
Journey to Empowerment Through Conflict Resolution.”
The main part
of the training included story-telling:
exercises. The participants went
through a guided review of their life experiences since childhood. The purposes of this story-telling exercise
are: first, to encourage the
woman to talk about her experience and express her feelings; and second, to
guide her to become aware of
the patterns of behavior which
have been formed, leading to conflicts
Being aware of these patterns is like holding the keys to changing
one’s self because the person can decide to change her pattern of behavior.
Unlike the usual story-telling exercise,
they focused on every stage of their life from early childhood up to maturity
(the present). They were encouraged to express their feelings and reactions
to the experiences of abuse. Almost all of the 25 women participants had experienced being trafficked and prostituted.
These meant continuous sexual abuse over many years in a foreign land.
The participants easily immersed into the
process of drawing out feelings and were very perceptive in helping to analyze
the others’ experiences, although they admitted it is much easier to
analyze the conflicts undergone by another person.
They could easily relate to the other participants’ sharings,
for they had all gone through similar experiences. While one volunteer
participant was sharing her experience, the others were reflecting on their
lives.
One of the participants said:
“Napakagandang malaman ang kahulugan ng conflict, mailabas ang
nasa puso, hindi dapat itago. (It is very good to know the meaning of conflict, to
reveal what is in one’s heart, it should not be hidden).
The
focus of the sharing process was on every experience, in particular conflict
as an opportunity for energising oneself and learning. To the women who have bottled up their feelings for many years, being able to open up and to reconstruct their trauma story was very cathartic. “Ako dati,
parang may daga sa dibdib, ngayon
ang saya-saya,” (Before, I had a
heavy heart, it felt like there was a
mouse in my chest, now I am very happy.), said a participant who was able to
narrate her story in full for the first
time.
The realization that their reactions
to the experiences of abuse and oppression, and the conflict were “healthy
and normal” proved to be a liberating experience to the survivors. To acknowledge that they are undergoing
a conflict means that they have a choice, and they have the power to
change their lives.
The women then analyzed their reactions
to see if there have been patterns of behavior formed.
For many survivors, low self-esteem has become a trap, an effect of
abuse which later leads them to enter abusive relations, not only sexual,
but also with family members and even business partners.
A participant continued
to send her earnings from prostitution in Japan to her relatives
in the Philippines, in
an effort to gain their respect ; even if she knew that they were squandering
her money. Yet deep inside her
she felt hatred for her family members, and most of all, for herself.
For the VAW survivors, experiences like this led to deep-seated conflicts
within the self which sometimes led to self-destructive
behaviors, like drug addiction.
The VAW survivor explored her weaknesses and mistakes, not to blame herself,
but, rather, as Herman says: “she becomes aware of the opportunity of
learning from the traumatic experience, no matter how expensive the price
that she paid. [xxiii]
In analyzing their needs and values,
the women looked at the sources of these needs and values, which lie in the
family, educational system, religion, and social norms.
The pervading patriarchal system was identified to be the source of
the prevalent misconception that women were inferior human beings and powerless
to change their situation.
The
workshops provided time and space for the women to reflect on their responses
to life and the patterns of behavior that have been crystallized. This led to greater self-knowledge.
The exercise
on Paradigm Shift: had the objective of leading to changes in the person’s
patterns of behavior, after the individual has analyzed what she wants
to change in herself. The core
message is that a person can
take control of her life by deciding to break the patterns of behavior that
she needs and wants to change.
In a broader context, all
women in a patriarchal society are constantly striving to create spaces for
their empowerment, to break male domination in all spheres.
And we know that we are still a long way off the mark. The battle to change the world will be
a long and frustrating one, but
winning the battle to change one’s self brings self-mastery, empowerment
and wholeness.
REFERENCES: