| excerpted Wrom: GGMEPYOQKEDOT
Bowman, Theories of Domestic Violence in the African Context , 11
American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law 847-863
(2003) (73 Footnotes Omitted)
Introduction
By the mid-1990s, attention had begun to be paid in most African
countries to the widespread problem of domestic violence. Studies about
partner abuse and femicide--both informal, anecdotal studies and more
formal surveys--appeared in Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa, for
example. Much of the initial writing was intended simply to document the
existence of such violence and thus to construct it as a social problem.
At the same time, activist groups in a number of countries such as
Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya began lobbying for the passage of domestic
violence codes, although only South Africa and Mauritius have passed
such statutes to date. Women's rights activists in several countries,
notably Zimbabwe and South Africa, established organizations that
counsel abused women, offer legal assistance, and in some instances
provide domestic violence training to government personnel. In Ghana and
South Africa, specialized units within the police force were set up to
address domestic violence problems affecting women and children.
Shelters for abused women have now been set up by non-governmental
organizations ("NGOs") in those two countries, as well as in
Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, and other places.
Although analysis of the problem of domestic violence is much more
recent in Africa than in the United States, and most of the writing
about it has been undertaken by activists rather than academics, several
theories of domestic violence are reflected in this work. As Elizabeth
Schneider points out, the theoretical grounding of domestic violence
work has important implications for the remedial strategies chosen to
address the problem, and especially whether it is seen as an aspect of a
larger struggle for gender equality. Schneider describes a number of
different types of explanations for domestic violence and contrasts them
with the feminist one: explanations rooted in individual psychology;
ones centering on sociological forces, such as family dysfunction; and
others focusing upon male aggression, poverty, and the culture of
violence. The various theories yield quite different prescriptions for
social action to confront the problem, such as individual psychotherapy
or family therapy, more stringent crime control measures, legal reforms,
or far- reaching social and economic transformation.
In this commentary I describe theories about domestic violence that
are explicit and/or implicit in the literature produced in the
Anglophone African context, a literature produced primarily by local
activists and by international NGOs, and examine the implications of
those theories for the work to be done. Part One describes a variety of
theories about domestic violence to be found in African writings, some
of which are implicit in explanations or descriptions of causation. In
examining the implicit theories offered in African writing about
domestic violence, I note that many feature a feminist explanation but
often combine it with suggestions for liberal democratic legal reforms,
undergirded by a theory of human rights. Other explanatory theories are
particular to the African context, such as so-called
"cultural" explanations, or explanations rooted in the
transition to a more urbanized and individualistic society, and
explanations based upon a so-called culture of violence produced by the
colonial experience. Part Two speculates about the implications of each
theory for determining where domestic violence activists should focus
their energies in order to decrease the phenomenally high level of
violence that has now been revealed.
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