The global women’s movement has taken significant strides since the World Conference on Human Rights (1993) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995). There are now commitments from governments as well as legal and policy instruments to address violence against women. Women’s movements in India have established nari adalats to enable domestic violence survivors to take legal action against their abusers. The police and the judiciary are trained to address VAW. However, much of the work of the women’s movement has focused on domestic violence and sexual assault.
Swayam, an organisation working to reduce VAW, had organised a national conference in Calcutta recently to examine the natal family as a neglected site of VAW. That the natal home is a site of violence and abuse — this is where violence against a girl child begins — is not a secret. In India, the birth of a girl child, in contrast to a male child, is a cause for disappointment. The discrimination and the control that girls are subjected to from birth get exacerbated at puberty and are justified as ‘protection’. Girls are told where they can go, what they can wear, and how they should behave. Body-shaming is widespread. Girls receive differential educational opportunities, less food than boys, and poorer medical attention. They are often married early. The persistence of the tradition of dowry shows that women continue to be viewed as a financial burden for the natal family. Girls are denied an equal share in the family property; support is not extended to daughters facing abuse in their marital homes. These actions may be termed ‘discriminatory’. But increasingly, such kinds of discrimination that lead to emotional abuse are being understood as a form of violence.
Significantly, the natal family has not been adequately critiqued or cited as a perpetrator of violence against women and girls even though girls and married or unmarried daughters face severe physical, emotional, verbal, and financial violence in their natal homes from both men and women as well as sexual abuse by male family members. This abuse is normalised and women and girls are often reluctant to report it or seek legal redress. Married women are often forced to return to violent conjugal homes as the natal family refuses to give them refuge.
Queer, transgender and women and girls with disabilities face greater hostility in their natal families. Queer and transgender women are often forced to conform to traditional sexual norms. Women with disabilities are treated as a financial burden and are routinely shamed and disrespected. Consequently, queer and transgender people have striven to break away from such abusive families and have forged ‘chosen families’. But even these alternative institutions are not devoid of the power dynamics that marginalise and abuse members.
Strategies to address natal family violence were discussed at the said conference where the importance of acknowledging such abuse in natal families was underlined. Greater social outreach to educate the stakeholders and the public about the perniciousness of natal family violence was another option that was looked into. The notion that family matters should not be discussed outside the familial unit as family honour is at stake needs to be challenged. Organisations working on domestic violence need to incorporate procedures to address natal family abuse. Evidence-based and case-work strategies that address the mental health of survivors must be developed while according paramount importance to the safety of survivors. Residential facilities, including hostels for young girls and working women that also include arrangements for queer citizens and those with mental and physical disabilities, need to be prioritised.
The conversation that has started to address natal family violence is the first and a key step to end family violence at this critical site.
Jael Silliman is an author