Mumbai, April 8: The fact that much of the sexual violence is committed by people known to the victim is a subject that has certainly become more commonly known and talked about now than ever before. Though, a step in the direction to a safer world, raising one’s voice resolves only part of the entire problem.

 

The family that comes to know about an instance of abuse by a known person is suddenly left to deal with several things at once- the fragile emotional state of the victim, the feelings of angst or rage or helplessness experienced by the family members as per their social and economic standing, the legal battle, the community relationships that are suddenly put at stake and so on. Above all, the broken trust that a victim and family is left with creates a far deeper wound that is difficult to heal even if legal justice is found.

 

As far as the domestic space is concerned, often the victim is faced with the individual again in different social settings. What is of utmost importance is to express oneself, just the sheer want to let know how devastating it been for someone to go through the abuse. Here’s where the tools offered by processes like Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Restorative Justice (RJ) can turn out to be possibly helpful. Both NVC and RJ are processes that respectively offer tools for striking difficult conversations and addressing harm. These methods are being used widely in schools of the United State of America, also in justice systems of Canada. In India there is a small yet growing awareness about it. I thus write this piece more as serving a piece of information and exploration not as recommending an affirmative alternate way to proceed in situation of sexual abuse.

 

Shannon Sliva explains the RJ approach in her TEDx talk citing her years of experience of asking one question to students, justice professionals, in courtrooms and to victims of crime- in situation when someone has done something to harm you, in that moment ‘what did you want?' She informs that most of them want the offender to "look them in the eye, acknowledge what happened and maybe if it's a genuine (then) apologise." She adds how people want a chance to explain how their lives have been impacted and see that the opposite person really got it.


What is peculiar to the entire situation of abuse by a known member is the difficulty involved in confronting the offender. The instances of abuse have long been treated much like family secrets mainly owing to the power dynamics between the genders or to the sheer fact that confrontation is going to put relations at stake even inviting social isolation for the victim’s family. Quite often the offender is a powerful male figure against whom standing up could be a very difficult situation to invite. Now that this subject has entered the screens inside people’s living rooms and the veil of denial is slowly lifting, at least talking about an instance of abuse has become more plausible than what the earlier generation went through. Here’s where knowing ways to strike the difficult conversation can help.

 

The RJ framework has its roots in Native American communities which used a dialoguing process to address conflicts arising amongst them. The first step of a RJ process is to recognise that harm is caused at so many levels in one instance of abuse and to understand the entirety of it. We all tend to focus on the victim as s/he is the person who got harmed primarily at the mental and physical level, however there’s much more to the instance. The impact is also on the victim’s family, on the community of relatives or neighbourhood or friends involved. Even the community of the offender is impacted, e.g. his/her family or friends face the concern, loose trust and so on. Having recognised the harm in its entirety, the next step of RJ framework is towards taking measures to repair the same. Justice has to heal the harm caused. The attempt is thus to address all people and all aspects that got impacted.

 

RJ involves creating dialoguing circles involving all concerned. There are multiple types of circles possible depending on the willingness of the victim and offender to engage with one another including the will of the community. In a typical circle the victim and the offender both are present along with members from both sides who have something to contribute to the whole conversation. This could include close family members, relevant community members, e.g. if the instance has happened in a school or college, then the head of institution, teachers, representatives of parents’ community, friends of the victim and offender depending on the nature of episode. The circle has a mediator who gets the conversation rolling where each member has the opportunity to speak and share what has been the impact. It brings healing by way of enabling each individual to share how he/she got impacted. Often the result is the offender understanding the depth of harm caused by him/her and how everyone is left after the instance of abuse. Taking responsibility of the harm is an essential part of the entire process.

 

On the other hand NVC founded by psychologist Marshall Rosenberg brings awareness about one’s feelings and knowing what deeper needs were impacted. It further offers tools to communicate in such a way that the opposite person is more likely to understand at a humane level. It offers a structure to strike conversation about what was not okay.Overall the process is more likely to generate empathetic and compassionate response from a listener.

 

Our legal system of justice is known to bring along many further issues that the victim and the family have to prepare themselves to deal with. It is known to include inappropriate questioning of the victim, the financial costs that not every family can afford, use of muscle power, threatening the victim and the family and so on. That subject demands another article altogether. For the purpose of this article, it is only a matter of recognition that even in a situation when the victim gets legal justice, it still leaves out the impact caused at the deeper emotional and psychological level for the victim and all others impacted. This is by no means advising not to take the legal route; it is only highlighting how that addresses the overall harm in a limited way. The dimension of wanting to know why the offender did what he/she did in the first place and making him/her truly understand the pain caused by the actions often do not find their way fully into the legal recourse.

 

While both these approaches- RJ and NVC- have been used in addressing conflicts of varying nature including sexual abuse, the willingness to take this dialoguing route needs to come by complete choice offered to all involved. It can be a slippery path to make these processes sound as more mature or evolved and we need to avoid walking that. Without getting into those moral judgments it is important to ask ourselves how is it that we wish to engage with an episode of abuse. If the answer is wanting to delve deeper and address the complete harm then RJ and NVC are the approaches to learn from.

 

The desire to get justice is one of the most innate human needs. Justice is also multifaceted. Each society is constantly evaluating its way of responding to harm as to whether or not it is serving the multiple purposes like ensuring responsibility is taken, the victim’s betterment, what is the message being conveyed to other potential offenders and so on. Whether or not we experience readiness to adopt a dialoguing approach to address sexual abuse is really a question we need to ask ourselves individually and collectively.


Sonal Sheth can be contacted at info@samvadculturestudio.org