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REGIONAL sociologists have gathered in Bahrain to analyse the existence of domestic violence in Gulf countries in a bid to eliminate it.
They are taking part in a three-day workshop to explore and raise awareness about domestic violence in Gulf countries, which kicked off yesterday at the Golden Tulip Hotel.
Organised by the Gulf Society for Sociologists and the Bahrain Society for Sociologists, the ‘Domestic Violence in GCC Countries: Reasons, Effects and Prevention’ was inaugurated by Labour and Social Development Minister Jameel Humaidan.
“Addressing domestic violence is a major challenge for civil and governmental stakeholders in the GCC countries because of the overlap between morals in society and family considerations,” Mr Humaidaan said.
“(Furthermore) cases of domestic abuse are difficult to monitor.
“However, we must be able to find a realistic treatment of the phenomenon that is consistent with the privacy (expected) in the Gulf society and achieve good results.
“We also need to strengthen trust and support for people exposed to domestic violence, in order to enable and encourage them to report these cases.”
A total of 72 delegates are taking part in the workshop, including regional expert and specialist Dr Wedad Al Isa, said Gulf Society for Sociologists president Khalaf Ahmed Khalaf.
“We started with this particular topic in recognition of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women that will fall on Friday,” he said.
“We are looking at the reality of our situation, the reasons that lead to domestic violence from our everyday reality, not just general studies done abroad.
“With domestic violence, often when parents are violent, they don’t mean to injure or badly affect their children, but they have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to raise a child.
“That’s the most dangerous kind of violence, when you believe you’re right.
“We need to look at how to break that down, understand it, and then find out how we can treat it.”
Mr Khalaf said the society has plans to set up workshops across the Gulf, addressing a different topic each time.
“We want to work with different sociologist societies in each country, starting in Bahrain, then UAE in perhaps six months and then Kuwait,” he added.
“The important thing is that every workshop features local sociologists, but also others from the GCC, so that we can have an exchange of opinions and experiences.
“We want to research topics and issues that we struggle with in the Gulf, so each time it’ll be a different topic.”
Kuwait Sociologists Association board member Sameera Al Kana’ai told the GDN that she believed knowledge exchange between regional sociologists was fundamental in tackling this phenomenon.
“The discussion between GCC countries is important, because we are in one boat - we have similar environments and laws,” she said.
“Occasionally we have one country come first in placing a law, but we all follow suit.
“We are here to discuss domestic violence because it is a huge phenomenon in the community and society, and its developments.
“If there’s domestic violence, every other social issue will crop up.
“When you have domestic violence, you’ll have problems with the youth, whether it’s disinterest, drugs, or other issues.”
She stressed on the need to adopt viable strategies rather than recommendations that were “simply on paper”.
“We need to have a strategy that works for us – for instance, in 1989 there was a law put forward by the UN regarding violence against children, but there are articles within it that don’t work for us,” explained Ms Al Kana’ai.
“So now we’ve started to have our own laws and having national laws are important, not just international laws, because people and
society are more restrained by national laws.
“This workshop comes between International Children’s Day on November 20 and International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
“This is an opportunity for us to have our voices heard.
“If there’s violence against the woman there will be violence against children – it’s a circle. You can’t separate it.”
The workshop will run until tomorrow.
laala@gdn.com.bh
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