E-Mail 'Til Death Do Us Part: ‘Suicide’ Reignites Demands for Domestic Violence Legislation' To A Friend

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1. Thanks for covering stories like this to show the lack of basic human rights in Armenia.

2. If there are laws on the books for murder and assault and battery, why are “domestic violence” laws necessary? Since when have more laws made a difference? Has anyone of these people stopped to ask, if there specific

3. if these laws wouldn’t have prevented the murder what is the true motivation of those who jump on obviously emotional events to call for “domestic violence” laws. Bottom line if your getting your head bashed in, maybe you should leave. Why does anyone think that the government has all the answers, when personal responsibility would solve the issue far more effectively, without the establishment of a “shelter”and advocate industry.

   • Shelters are for when the abuser can find and cause harm to the woman who has left. A lot of times, leaving is not enough because the abuser is motivated to find and continue causing harm.

4. Is this “legislation” going to take the same shape as the US laws where the Male of the species is automatically guilty until proven innocent?

   • Yes, the whole purpose of such “legislation” is to unjustly find men guilty of domestic abuse, which really doesn’t exist.

     hagopn, how many men do you think are unjustly accused compared to the ones who are justly and correctly accused, plus the ones that never get brought to court, even though they should. How big a problem do you think this is?

5. You side-stepped the issue. You probably don’t know the answer to your question as well. I have seen men unjustly accused, have their lives ruined, have their family torn apart, where the woman simply wants another lover in the end, but that is truly not the central point.

   “Legislation” of this sort is the first step at taking another stab at family autonomy, at that “dastardly patriarchy”, and weakening the family, at creating an environment where marriages will be “guarded” by the State.

   Such “legislation” is of course porous as all heck in the US, where an random individual can do the reporting and create a situation, similar to the child abuse laws where any random individual can create chaos in your home by simply calling the authorities.

   Find other solutions for this. Finance films, educational material, literature, that targets this, and, yes, even religious means, but keep the damned State out of it.

   • hagopn,

     The main issue here is domestic abuse, violence and even murder, which is very real and needs to be dealt with. We have laws for theft, murder, rape and all sorts of other crimes by the state, but we can’t have one for where domestic violence? Why is this different than other crimes that the state can’t get into it?

     There are many people who have been wrongly accused of a crime, but that does not mean those laws should be repealed. Same applies to domestic violence. Not only that, women have been helped from such domestic laws.

     And what does “family autonomy” mean? Please explain. Does that mean anything goes in a household and laws can’t interfere? Again please explain.

     Religion, film, education, PR have been applied to all sorts of other crimes. While those have helped, such crimes continue to happen. That’s where the law and legal system comes in. And that should be the same here.

6. Let me add also that journalism such as this probably has more of an impact than any government intervention, especially law enforcement intervention. One of the possible reasons for inaction by one of these poor women is distrust of police! Are we to trust an increasingly abusive institution in the prevention of abuse?

   Shelters are a must, provided that they are a true safe havens, something that women should be able to resort to first and foremost without making this matter public. If we’re talking about public funding for this, then that would be a priority IMHO.

   Making the extremely personal matter public and dragging it into the State driven system, especially the justice system, or forcing the woman to make it a legal law enforcement matter opens her up for retribution. It is an extremely sensitive situation where she’s probably dealing with a mindset that has many multiple generations of habit inherited and justified in the minds of her abuser. It is also likely his family background has many live models to feed his behavior. How is she to confront this with whose help exactly?

   Public condemnation of such behavior is a second priority, and here’s where journalism such as the above makes an impact. Yet, I see no one dealing with the historical and geopolitical context contributing, perhaps as the primary contributor. We have, after all, neighboring states whose religious laws sanction wife beating as a default awarded privilege. Are we going to try to learn about ourselves and our history, truly find a way to peel away at these dark years and dark habits?

   There’s so much to say on such a huge topic. I hope this opens up a more mature discussion than “pass laws, emasculate them! Men are evil!”

   This is the core of it all, and I truly am thankful for the journalist above.

   By the way, where is our church in all this? Is the Church providing shelter, or is that too much to ask?

7. Your responses are well noted and appreciated.

   I don’t pretend that there is no criminality in spousal abuse, which is a more proper term, as apparently in the so-called developed countries husband abuse seems to be much more common than previously thought. I have seen husband abuse among Armenians as well. In situations where there is obvious battering and abuse, laws probably exist that are perhaps not enforced due to the cultural biases that sometimes override these laws. There are instances of this in even “developed” countries where the populations have been, for the lack of a better term, properly brainwashed into automatically condemning domestic violence of any sort.

   As to the automony argument: Child abuse and spousal abuse are much more potent crimes in terms of having impact on really what is the core of society, the family. Yes, families need to be more autonomous in managing their own affairs, and in the area of child rearing and development especially the State is inherently insensitive, careless, callous, blind and incompetent. Hence the reason every long-standing religion abhors State involvement in family affairs.

   As I mentioned in my other response, the historical and geopolitical contexts of having been ruled by Muslim empires has had its toll.

   Does this mean that this family model shields criminal behavior? Ironically I have seen the weakening of family bonds to be the primary catalyst for criminal behavior. As a subset, when leading members of a family feel they have no power, they will usually resort to more extreme measures for control. When you have a paradigm that defines battering as spousal “discipline” versus abuse, the problem is compounded with the likely consequence of retribution.

   What to do when the situation is as for the woman who was murdered? I am again referring to her inaction due to distrust of the police! I have no answer except for some safe haven, shelter governed by a non-State entity, something that does not at first involved the Law.

8. hagopn

   Your last question is very interesting ! As far as I am informed our
   church has just 2 nuns. E.g. at present the church has no possibility
   to help in case of domestic violence and abuse in a practical way. Priests and Vartabeds can hardly open a shelter for women.

   But what is absolutely missing is the voice of our Catholicos and the
   leading bishops of our church ! How can the people leading our church
   keep quiet, if they SEE what happens to women in our country ?

   Do they not have an order of GOD to care for ALL people sufficiently?

   DO THEY ?

   • What church? Church’ means The Body of Christ. Our body is the temple of God. And the servants of God should not be serving themselves. These people who are playing church, including the Catholicos, are not serving our Lord Jesus Christ nor His sheep, but their pockets only. Aren’t you aware what the Catholicos is doing? He cannot be bothered with these real issues, while he is having a life of his own outside of the walls of Etchmiazin.

9. What we have to learn from the successful discussion about bus fares is
   that we NEVER MUST GIVE UP ! If we are convinced to do the right, WE HAVE TO GO ON ! Maro was more important than ALL Bus fares.
   WE HAVE TO GO ON TILL JUSTICE IS ACHIEVED !

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