Personal stories of abuse underline need for tough domestic violence act: experts

By The Nation

 

Lertpanya Buranabundit

 

A seminar audience yesterday (August 6) heard the story of a woman who had been jailed on charges of killing her husband in an aggravated assault after she had suffered years of domestic abuse that continues to affect her psychologically today.

 

Network for Human Rights and Social Protection hosted the seminar titled “Stories From Domestic Violence Victims and Social Protection Workers”. It aimed to portray the first-hand experiences of victims of domestic violence against women and family members, highlighting a problem that has persisted for decades in Thai society.

 

Representatives from the Network cited a 2017 study by Ramathibodi Hospital and Thai Health Promotion Foundation that found that 32.3 per cent of domestic violence targeted women and family members psychologically, while 9.9 per cent was physical, and 4.5 per cent sexual.

 

Moreover, the study discovered that 82.6 per cent of domestic violence victims were afraid to seek help from related agencies or third parties, with shame or a lack of trust in the procedures of the agencies cited as the main reason by participants.

 

This indicates that the current social protection system sorely needs a new mechanism that is more victim-friendly, the report found.

 

Lertpanya Buranabundit, the director-general of Women’s Affairs and Family Development Department under the Ministry of Social Development and Social Security, joined the discussion session. He said the event will serve as a guideline to improve the implementation of, and future amendments to, the Family Institution Development and Protection Act, BE 2562, which will come into force on August 20.

 

“This new law is designed protect victims of domestic violence in both the short term and the long term,” he said. “For example, to prevent repeated offences, the criminal court or juvenile court can, under the new law, immediately issue a temporary court order prohibiting the husband from coming near to the wife for 48 hours.”

 

The Family Institution Development and Protection Act will also treat domestic violence cases as criminal cases, while aiming to provide victims with special protection in the event that the victims kill their abusers unintentionally or in self-defence.

 

The seminar also included politician Natthawut Buaprathum, a party-list MP from the Future Forward Party. A member of the committee that drafted the new Family Institution Development and Protection Act, Natthawut repeated his comments made during the government’s policy debate back on July 26 – urging the government to take aggressive measures against domestic violence.

 

“Domestic violence could lead to many social and economic problems,” he said. “Therefore, we need to create a helping mechanism that is friendly to the victims, while ensuring that they will receive proper justice, assistance and remedy according to international human right principles.”

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30374382

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-08-07

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children should also be able to sue their parents, which they can not under thai law as they are property ... this leads to more abuse than domestic violence under adults...

 

my ex-wife sure did psychologically abuse her daughter & me with threats, abusive talk and violence over years knowing thai law would do shit for us

52 minutes ago, webfact said:

It aimed to portray the first-hand experiences of victims of domestic violence against women and family members, highlighting a problem that has persisted for decades in Thai society.

So now they decide to do something about it. Time they had a serious look at Thai culture as a whole and TRY to move into the modern age! Face and greed is crippling the country.

If I was female and married to this "Thai expert"  I would give him a good slapping, a knee in the b$lls and tell him to do something, not just keep talking about domestic violence  ????????

Exposing this toxic shame-based scourge is always a good thing!

DV exists in all societies , but a very few. Thailand is certainly not different to these others in this horrific respect.

State mechanisms that legislate  in support of and act to protect any victim is always a good thing.

its up to all of us to report any violence, or suspicion of violence.

If neighbours argue or fight we should report it immediately, especially if it’s a regular thing!

No matter how inconvenient or ‘embarrassing’ it might be to us.

 

 

There is a guy here who beats people up if they wear clothes he doesn't like.  I agree it is time to make some changes.   

38 minutes ago, Tropposurfer said:

If neighbours argue or fight we should report it immediately, especially if it’s a regular thing!

Are you listening, Boris?

That would open a can of worms.

 

First: women can always claim the husband was violent and she knows he will lose even if he did nothing. Law is on her side - just or not.

physical violence is not the only kind of violence. Words can hurt and can be very violent, too. Thai women (if not all women) are very good with this.

It can make men so crazy that they lose control and get physical violent. And then they lose, too. Law will focus only on the physical violence - not the mental one that might have caused it, which happens many times.

Violence with physical force or mental force (words) might be a gender issue.

Focussing on the men alone - would be very unfair.

Agree to protect from physical violence - but how to protect from the mental one that often caused it.

5 hours ago, geoffbezoz said:

If I was female and married to this "Thai expert"  I would give him a good slapping, a knee in the b$lls and tell him to do something, not just keep talking about domestic violence  ????????

I'd buy him a better wig.

10 minutes ago, sweatalot said:

Words can hurt and can be very violent, too. Thai women (if not all women) are very good with this.

Many Thai women are also good with a knife (as I've found personally with two different Thai ladies).

I prefer them to use words.

 

Allowing women to murder men is not the answer to any problems.

And no court orders should be issued without physical evidence (not just 'she said')

In these days of smartphones and cameras, why does nobody require physical evidence, surely it can't be that hard to press 'record', it's not as if the ladies phones ever leave their hands.

Until big strides are met bringing the status of woman up in Thailand this is a go nowhere change though I guess it's a start. In the small village where we operated a store I'd see the results of Saturday night drunks wailing on the wives. Some of the worst beatings I saw were women who were married to cops. The use of restraining orders world wide has shown that if there's a will to hurt someone, a piece of paper does nothing to deter that intent. These brave men who beat on their women usually learn this behavior from their esteemed fathers (also common many places), alcohol is usually involved (where else would they get the courage to beat up a woman) and normally doesn't stop unless there's extreme intervention. This country has a long way to go to get rid of these demons considering these actions are still very common in the west after a myriad of actions.   

ingrained  and accepted, my Wife once told me to hit her, I was quite shocked at the time.

12 hours ago, gunderhill said:

ingrained  and accepted, my Wife once told me to hit her, I was quite shocked at the time.

yep some just like a good paddling ????