Women Seek Help Most for Domestic Violence

KHUM records for the year 2005 show that 2,827 women applied to the Bar Association's women's rights center. 71 percent of them were complainants, 15.8 percent defendants, and the remaining sought legal counsel in issues of credit and debt.

The data shows that 59.9 percent of applicants were seeking a divorce and 12.8 percent were seeking assistance in enforcing alimony payments. 9.7 percent of the applicants came to the center for violations of Law 4320 while 8.6 percent applied for alimony.

Violence High

In all the applications made to the Center, 95.18 percent of the cases involved complaints of one form of violence or another while there was no mention of domestic violence in 4.81percent of the cases.

Psychological violence ranked high in the complaints at 81.9percent. But 70.1 percent of the applicants also complained of social violence and 65.6 percent of physical violence too. 60.1 percent of the complaints referred to economic violence and only 10.4 percent to sexual violence.

Of the women applying to the Center and complaining of violence, 93.8 percent said they were victims of domestic violence instigated by their husbands or male partners while the remaining were subjected to violence by the family or friends of a spouse, their own family and even their own children.

However, only 20.6 percent of the women complaining of violence had doctors reports accompanying their claim while 74.8 percent did not.

KHUM records showed that 90.6 percent of the applicants were married, 7.2 percent were divorced, 1.8 percent were single and 0.3percent were involved with another outside of wedlock.

The data showed that women in longer-term marriages made less application to the Center than women who had been married for shorter periods and that a majority of the applicants were elementary school graduates. As the education level increased, the number of applicants decreased. Also, 73.5 percent of the women applying to KHUM were registered as housewives. (EZO/TK/II/YE)