PORT VILA (ABC PACIFIC) — The Pacific region has some of the highest rates of gender-based abuse in the world.
The Vanuatu National Survey on Women’s Lives and Family Relationships paints a grim picture.
It found almost 70 percent of women who’d been in a relationship experienced emotional violence, and the same number experienced at least one form of coercive control.
The survey also found that half the women surveyed believe a good wife must obey her husband even if she disagrees with him.
Anne Pakoa, founder and CEO of Vanuatu Human Rights Coalition and founder and technical advisor of the Vanuatu Young Women for Change, said domestic abuse can come in the form of emotional abuse like controlling behaviour, isolation, and insults intended to damage a person’s state of mind.
Many people don’t know that psychological abuse is another form of violence, and in some countries like Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, it’s even against the law.
Because emotional violence is so common, Pakoa said it was something that needed a community-based solution, alongside awareness and professional support.
“Emotional violence is something that is very common. It happens within families. It happens between people who… are entering into relationships. It happens in the workplace. It happens at home. It happens everywhere,” she said.
“Everybody needs to take this as their own business … We’re together in this … We need to recognise the roles the traditional leaders, traditional healers and leaders play in combating domestic violence.
“[When it comes to emotional violence] … this is something that we really need mind care specialists to step into every corner of our society and start educating people about no to emotional violence and strategies to eliminate this emotional violence.”
One of the organisations offering support to both victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse — including emotional abuse — is the Bible Society of the South Pacific.
Renata Netaf, project manager in Vanuatu, hopes community and church leaders speak up on ending the cycle of abuse.
“People are suffering greatly emotionally… we need to do more awareness… not only the women, but it’s also the men too. Women can abuse their husbands and say all sorts of things that hurt them,” she said.
“We are hoping that the church leaders and even the chiefs support us to help eradicate this trend and train and educate more people.
“When somebody is traumatised… it tends to pass on to [the next] generation.”
Alicia Sahib says being the victim of emotional abuse made her “numb over the years”.
“That’s the feeling I recall,” she told Sistas, Let’s Talk.
“At times I thought I was going insane because I knew deep down something was not right.
“I had no sense of self-worth, my reality was distorted, I had memory lapses, and I became very forgetful.
“I remember blaming myself because I was led to believe that my actions, or inactions were the cause of the type of interactions in my relationship.”
Once Sahib gave birth to her children, it continued to get worse.
“I was always made to feel that I was not a good mother. I was always made to feel that I was not a good wife, especially when he had troubles that I didn’t help go away.
“And [from] all of that, I went into deep depression. I remember not knowing really, how to laugh.”
Today, she’s a survivor and advocate of people suffering from domestic abuse but details the suffering its victims experience, especially when the abuse is emotional, something people often can’t see.
Today, since leaving the abusive relationship, Sahib lives a new life.
“We laugh, we sing, we actually dance, we listen to music,” she said.
“We can go out, visit places, visit anyone, I have people coming to my house. I actually invite friends to my house.
“I have changed everything in the house I didn’t feel like going to many, many years ago.
“We feel free… and that we are safe in our own home,” she said…. PACNEWS