International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women This 25th of November is International Day for the

Elimination of Violence against Women. This month we're sending a different kind of newsletter. This newsletter has two short articles, one was written by Nitza Eshed and the other, by advocate Merav Tzfoni and myself. On the same note, Last week we woke up to some mind blowing numbers about children suffering from violence: Nearly half of Israels children suffer physical, sexual or emotional abuse. A study on child abuse of more than 10,000 children the first of its kind to be conducted in Israel found that close to half of them reported that they had been physically, emotionally or sexually abused. Read more about these mind blowing numbers We have a 24 hour hotline 1-800-353-300 and a website Find us on Facebook Hebrew and English You can safely donate online at the "Israel Donates" site: Click here to donate Or by bank transfer: Bank HaPoalim 12 Branch 628 Account number: 316941 Or send a check: Payable to Say No to Violence POB 5941 Herzlia, 46101

No to Violence November 2013

The Judges Reflect My Countrys Ignorance

by Merav Tzfoni, Advocate and Daniela Kehat, CEO No2Violence

Sometimes its hard to see how the years pass and so little changes. For almost forty years we have increased awareness, given lectures and workshops, advocated political movements for change and legislation and more and more and moreyet we still witness the fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to women and children suffering from violence in their own homes. Suffering from violence. Brutal beatings that leave marks and bruises, and cause bloody injuries and broken bones. Insults and degradation that cause a person to feel useless. Murder threats. Rape. No money for food. Violence violence, violence. The women bravely muster the courage to take their children away from the only home they know and move to the shelter. Marching to the unknown. Its so horrible at home that they prefer to leave it. To go to an unknown place, and know that there they will all sleep together, and sometimes with another woman and her children that they dont know. In the good case, the result of taking this step is a divorce. Its hard to grasp the meaning of this sentence, I know. But it is the reality. After years and sometimes many long years, of living together, the women understand that they and their families are facing life-threatening danger or that the violence will never end, and they decide to take responsibility for whats left of their lives and the lives of their young children in order to break out of the cycle of violence.

And there, in the courtroom, we are faced with the gross lack of understanding and ignorance which for us has become the routine reality. Take, for example, the request for a restraining order against the violent party. There are judges who relentlessly require the womans address as a condition for the orderthereby exposing the womans location and

the shelters, where she is hiding along with other women and children. This ultimately eradicates her advantage and the peace and calm she has achieved by running away to an unknown location. Once again the ball is in the violent husbands court. He can choose to harass her or not. Or the case where the judge rules for open visitation rights, unsupervised, like regular non-violent couples would receive. These visitation rights expose the mother and her children to real and present danger! These rights are seemingly the result of the distorted social approach that separates completely between the fathers violence toward the mother and his connection to his childrenalthough in reality its clear that this is a totally artificial distinction which does not represent the reality. A recent Israeli survey showed that 80%, eighty percent! of children in violent homes, suffer from violence. In any case, it is well known that even if a child hasnt suffered violence himself, his exposure to violence causes trauma and a difficult loyalty conflict toward his parents. And the Rabbinical Court takes it one step further by setting visitation while the husband is in prison during the court proceedings. Or even worse: Not giving temporary custody immediately for the period the mother is in the shelterand sometimes joint custody is granted! Even though a violent father is involvedand part of the same new and trendy policy that separates between the fathers violence toward the mother and the his relationship with his children, without analyzing whats best for the children. This is done as an attempt to decrease the pressure the violent father puts on the social services and the courts. Where are the childrens best interests? Granting joint custody in cases of violence completely ignores the fact that there is NO cooperation between the parents, to say the least. There is no communication, the parents may not live near each other, and there is no real opportunity to put the joint custody into practice. It has happened, that a woman arrives at the shelter AFTER the divorce due to violence from the man she has just divorced! If the divorce agreement included open visitationthere are judges that arent willing to change these visitation rights despite the fact that the woman and her children are in the shelter and her change of circumstance. Too often women who go into the shelters are accused of using this as a tactic in order to denigrate the father and gain a relative advantage, so to speak, which they wouldnt gain had they not gone into the shelter. As part of the war against this brilliant tactic we see the courts granting injunctions that forbid the mother from moving with her children to a city thats more that a certain distance from where the couple lived together in this way the father wins in the battle with the mother and maintains control over her and the children. He is free to harass and threaten them endlessly, and sometimes use physical violence and not only verbal. The woman is incapable of living a calm and quiet life after leaving the shelter, and often even returns to live with the violent husband and into the cycle of violence. Even when she fights this, the laws and the restraining orders are not enforced. Another example of the lack of understanding and total ignorance is the setting of ridiculous alimony payments during the time the women and children are in the shelter. According to a number of judges, everything is paid for during her stay in the wonderful place, the shelter, and she has no expensesthis results in the mother being unable to financially

rehabilitate herself, to buy the basics necessary in order to leave the shelter, or often just to pay the basic expenses of her children. We encounter especially difficult circumstances and gross ingnorance when the woman is in the country illegally, married to an Israeli and the mother of his children, in the process of legalizing her citizenship. The moment she leaves the violent partner, her legalization process is stopped and leaves her with no rights, medical or otherwise. The court answers the violent mans request and grants a no-exit injunction for the children while the mother has no papers or rights in Israeland is generally facing deportation. Concurrently, the court grants ridiculous alimony in these cases. The woman is in an impasseshe is suffering from immigration violence (living under the constant threat that if she doesnt cater to the violent husbands every whim, he can have her thrown out of the country), and complete dependence on the violent husband, because without him she can lose all of her rights. Her only option is to abandon her children and return to her country of origin. She has no chance for an independent life and is forced to return to the violent husband. Professor Aliza Lavi, Head of the Committee for the Advancement of Women in the Knesset, we are turning to you, to work together to change the situation described above, that is a result of the courts lack of understanding and gross ignorance regarding domestic violence, which is the same in many other institutions in Israel today.

Private Opinion /Nitza Eshed

A bloodcurdling scream spilled from within him and evaporatedwith a cruel slap into the haze it tore every part of his bodyevery vein of his beingand afterwards there was a deep and overpowering silencehe looked around and nothing had changed. An overwhelming terror gripped his soul. The scream was within him. Silenced, it has gripped his soul since then and followed him for the last 40 years. I have chosen to open our journey with Rs story. My frienda battered child. Today he is 50 years old and lives abroad, far away from the past and his childhoodbut his soul is wounded and haunted. Rs story (which I will tell you) is one of thousands of children, invisible, transparent, that live in dark houses, with violent parents, with battered mothers, who helplessly choose to continue living in the hell they are in. They dont know that there is another way. Domestic violencephysical, emotional, verbal, financial and sexualis a social phenomenon that can be found in all sectors of society. Negative effects and long-term injuries for every member of the family, especially children, are the result of this disturbing phenomenon. Violence is the language of power, of the need to control another person, by means of brutality, degradation and raping of the spirit. its only a matter of time till the delicate threads unraveland everything gets worsesometimes its secondsand then the

helleverything is blackand afterwardssometimes there is the silence of many facesthreatening, degrading, conciliatingtill the darkest hell returns Violence in all of its forms is the silent killer that invades the body, seeps inside andturns the soul into an assortment of tortured particles, weakening the soul, terrorizing the spirit. There is something unnerving about the passing time, even cruel, since the memories fade, and events disappear through time. But unbelievably, these memories take hold, gain a dimension, shape and depth that refuse to disappear. This is what happened to my friend R. There is no reason for a woman to suffer violence. There is no reason that any child should carry within him these horrible scars. There is no reason that any person should be exposed to such deep and searing pain. In the year 1405 of the 15th century, Christian de Pizannedaughter of a Venetian noblespoke of married women who were injured by physical and verbal violence and on the injustice that hides behind the double standard between men and women. She protested against coerced sex and denounced mens unwillingness to understand the meaning of the word NO!! She was the first link in the chain of women who followed in her footsteps and continue to fight against the powerful ones who have the right to control others with various means of coercion and maintain their status of supremacy. Carol Hanischa radical social activist, published an article in 1969 entitled, The Personal is Political, a revolutionary expression that became a coined phrase and an inseparable part of human life. This expression revolutionized the way we look at public and personal space, according to this conceptthe personaland the space in which it happens is naturalin other words, femininitymotherhood couplehoodrelationshipsloveare all natural processes which produce continuous innate roles. The accepted dominant cultural male approach became an integral part of the human experience. This concept related to womens biology as her only true purpose and from this point of view came a wide range of principles, behaviors and rules. Hanisch asserted that these are dependent on the society, culture and politics and therefore are open to change. This leads to the fact that women can change the reality of their lives, its in their hands. In the spirit of this revelation, in 1991 Israel enacted the law to prevent domestic violence and family feuds, making domestic violence a criminal offense. Domestic violence is no longer a deep, dark family secret and is now discussed and treated. Today there is greater awareness of this problem. 60 treatment centers have opened to prevent domestic violence and shelters have been created to protect battered women and their children. Unfortunately, women who are suffering from violence do not rush to file a complaint or share their plight. This may be due to financial or social reasonsembarrassment, fear of the husbands power, or lack of awareness of the opportunities for help and the possibility of change. Many women arrive at hospital emergency rooms as a result of domestic violence. These women are sick with chronic illnesses and their emotional and physical condition is poor when compared with other women. Battered children become aggressive, angry and hateful or conversely silenced without knowing that there is a way out of the violent cycle. In this way generation after generation is sentenced to a life of pain and suffering. My name is Nitza and I am active in the Say No to Violence Against

Women organization. This organization was founded about 35 years ago by Ruth Rasnic, who made it her goal to help the women and children who according to the authorities did not exist.

The organization has three shelters that house the women and their children. It also has a legal unit that gives consultation services to women and a hotline for women in distress in Hebrew, Russian and English. In addition, there is a hotline for children and teenagers and one for parents on the edge. This is the first of its kind in Israel, providing help for parents the moment BEFORE they hit a child. The hotlines are anonymous and run 24 hours a day including Saturdays and holidays. I have chosen to go on a journey with you and expose you to people, stories, books, artists, philosophies, which have come my way and yours, even if you didnt know they were therethose that have shaped my soul, my spirit, my worldand yoursthose that distorted our souls or on the contrary strengthened and molded the loose threads that comprise our independence and significance as women and human beings. I will be happy to hear from you. Send me your requests, comments, questions and generally anything that arises on the topic and you would like to discuss. With your help, I want to create a circle of communication

that will widen the exposure to the topic of domestic violence and the possibility of escaping it. Violence against women is harmful for the society as a whole, as Dorit Beinish, former president of the Israeli Supreme Court said, Israeli society was founded on the idea of equality, but not only havent we achieved equality, but women are perceived as a weak and vulnerable atrisk groupwherever you turnthe root of the problems are deeper and wont be solved by legislation and judgments, but by a wide-ranging shift in conception. Remember, the right to choose our future and to plan our lives and reach our potential is a basic human right that no one has the right to harm.

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