Victimizing the Victim

My wife, Ruth, works for the local shelter for women and children at risk as an outreach worker. It means that every day she counsels women who are trying to figure out the next step in relationships which are emotionally and physically controlling and abusive. In many situations these women have been isolated from friends and family and convinced that they are nothing as human beings without their abusive partner. Often they leave, only to return to the relationship because the known seems better than the unknown, despite the cruelty. It can be discouraging to those who attempt to provide support.

This week a 19-year-old woman named Noelle Mowatt went to jail, not because she was convicted of a crime but because she refused to testify against a partner who was charged with abuse after she called police. Noelle is nine months pregnant and should not be incarcerated yet a judge has sent her to the jail in Milton, Ontario. She has little in the way of a support system, so she decided that she needed her abuser. From jail she says that she would never call the police for help again.

Ruth speaks to church groups, mostly women, whose members are often shocked to realize that abuse of women and children happens close at hand. Congregations are increasingly sensitive to these issues and provide practical support to shelters. All of society, including the judicial system need to "get" the complex issues of abuse.