by Polly Harrar. Founder, CEO of The Sharan Project
Domestic Abuse can happen to anyone and can be inflicted by anyone, this includes abuse by a child, adolescent or adult against a parent or guardian. This is often referred to as child to parent abuse (CPA) and can occur regardless of the age of the child.
Society generally views children as being vulnerable, in need of protection and sometimes as victims or witnesses of abuse. However this can often mask CPA, which is under reported, difficult to report or access specialist support.
Engendered?
South Asian communities find it difficult to talk about abuse, particularly physical and sexual abuse as it is seen as shameful to disclose, viewed as dishonouring the family name and somehow the victims fault. Add to this racial and generational trauma and the practice of preferential treatment of sons, we have all the ingredients of male privilege and the normalisation of abusive behaviours
It starts at a young age, when boys are born, they are celebrated like kings, when girls are born, you are offered condolences. This leads to an unhealthy upbringing where praise is showered on the males and the women are seen to exist only to ‘serve and be polite’.
Anyone who has ever seen an old Bollywood film will recall the hero is almost always a strong male and the love interest is viewed as the pretty, virtuous girl next door, who through a number of costume changes, dances her way through the film and into the hero’s arms. These imaginings lead to an early understanding of male dominance over women and girls.
| Sharan supported a woman to be reunited with her children, this was a complex international child abduction case and we were able to first locate the daughter who was returned to the mother after 5 years of captivity by the father’s family. Eventually we were able to find and reunite our client with her son, who was raised solely by the father. The son would relay personal information to the father, making the client’s location so unsafe that our client reported being followed by persons unknown within the community. The son would fight with his sister to the point she was physically harmed on several occasions and he would often overpower his mother by pinning her down when he did not get his way. One night our client woke up to find her son standing over her with a knife. He claimed he was sleep walking but by then he knew he had instilled fear that would stay with her forever. |
Stereotypes of South Asian mothers often involve the concept of being happy submissive homemakers who are eager to please the family. They are encouraged to have many children, particularly sons, which is viewed as a sign of ‘achievement’, given they will continue the family name and will be less of a burden than daughters, who are viewed as costly when at the age for marriage and who often hold the ‘honour’ of the family so need to be raised to uphold this burden.
Add to this the notion that women are told not to worry about financial matters, that it is the husband or in-laws role to provide or manage the mortgage/rent, bank accounts, pensions, insurance etc. This leaves women with little to no economic education or independence, they can further be exploited through the taking out of loans/credit cards, debts under her name or using the dowry to pay for land overseas, poor business decisions or to fund addictions – all this makes it harder to leave abuse.
Vicarious Trauma
Where abuse is present within a household, children may resent the mother for not speaking out and may eventually normalise the fathers behaviour. Where the mother has left the abusive relationship, the children and particularly boys are more prone to adapt the fathers behaviour as a form of expressing their own trauma, leaving the mother to internalise self blame for perceived bad parenting, which is then mirrored by statutory services and the community. It can also occur in households with no domestic abuse and be inflicted by girls and women too.
This can also be an extension to post separation abuse whereby the child or children can become abusive to a parent or carer as they have been desensitised to the learnt abusive behaviour, which they then use to continue the cycle of abuse.
| Two boys who lived with their father were exposed to physical violence and domestic servitude. Following a court hearing, their mother won full custody and they were all placed in unsuitable temporary accommodation. The children viewed this as a punishment for speaking out against their father as, despite finally being free from abuse, their living conditions were significantly lower than what they were used to. The father would regularly undermine the mother by calling the boys, telling them to put the phone on speaker mode so he could swear at the mother, telling the children that she has lots of money and that she should give the money to them. The reality was the father had been using the child benefit to pay for his addictions and saw the loss of this income as the mother’s fault. He would regularly reward the children for being abusive to their mother by sending them fast food deliveries or money. The boys would regularly fight with each other, resulting in mother getting hurt when trying to break them up, eventually the threats of violence were directed at mum, to include locking her in a room and switching off the light, knowing she was afraid of the dark and that the father had done the same to her years before. |
Intergenerational
Growing up, I saw first hand how, when boys are given different privileges to girls such as going out, making their own decisions, being fed first, told they are better than girls and indeed women, how this manifests into a lack of care and mistreatment of their sisters, mothers, women and girls. This is then reinforced by parents/guardians and community members who make excuses for their behaviour and often put the blame on women and girls.
Where SA families often live in multi generational households, there is an unspoken understanding that children will look after their parents in later life. This can create a hotbed for resentment and abuse.
| A case we supported involved an elderly widowed mother who lived with her adult son and daughter in law. The daughter in law would regularly starve and beat her whilst our client’s son was at work and then pretend to be kind to her mother in law when he returned. As the client was wholly reliant on her son and did not want the stigma of shame of telling her son the truth, she kept quiet. This went on for many years until one day the son returned home early to find his mother in a pile on the floor having soiled herself as the daughter in law refused to let her use the loo. |
Like many harmful practices, CPA within SA families remains hidden in plain sight and the truth is, it is more prevalent than we think. Part of the problem can be patriarchy but it also the loss of power women feel when they are raised to believe boys and men can do whatever they want and there will be no consequences.
We need to de-stigmatise and de-normalise this form of abuse and recognise that victims are not always women or girls and abusers are not always men or boys, they come in all shapes and sizes, regardless of class, gender, race or age.
If you or someone you know have been affected by any of the issues in this article, please contact us at info@sharan.org.uk or call us on 08445043231
You can also contact CPA specialist services such as PEGS hello@pegsupport.com or go to their website and request a call back https://www.pegsupport.co.uk/contact
You can also contact Family Lives on 0808 800 2222 or send them an email askus@familylives.org.uk
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