Iza, 35, is beaten and raped by her husband, who also rapes her children. He can pin her against a wall and strike around her head with a sharp object. He also threatens to inject her with “HIV.” Iza’s husband is addicted to drugs and alcohol. Little Marek wears long sweaters and trousers in hot weather to hide bruises and a scratch. Both of his alcoholic parents beat him. Eleven-year-old Monika avoids her peers, is ashamed to undress for physical education, and is regularly abused by her stepfather. She told her mother, but her mother slapped her in the face for it. Mietek is 40; his wife beats him with a broomstick until he bleeds. He has never admitted it to anyone.
The examples above illustrate the difficult cases handled every day by social welfare center workers, police officers, prosecutors, judges, probation officers, addiction therapists, and doctors of various specialties. Victims reach one of the institutions, most often the police or an emergency department. Each institution is subsequently involved in providing assistance. However, documentation is often duplicated, victims have to recount their experiences several times, and information about them does not always flow smoothly from one institution to another.
The legislature has imposed on municipalities an obligation to create interdisciplinary teams (in Bolesławiec, the team was established in September 2011). Its members include representatives of local support institutions. The team is intended to provide victims of domestic violence with more effective and comprehensive assistance.
“The team is intended to improve the quality of assistance provided to victims,” says Lidia Dudek, director of MOPS in Bolesławiec. “It should eliminate, for example, the duplication of activities by the police, social workers, or probation officers. Cooperation within the team will make it possible to take a broader view of the most difficult problems and save time and energy in solving them,” she adds.
Among those attending the training on the work of the interdisciplinary team were a representative of the prosecutor’s office, probation officers, Bolesławiec neighborhood police officers, Beata Sulska, head of the Social Affairs Department of the Municipal Office, Danuta Stefanik, patient rights ombudsman at the Health Care Center in Bolesławiec, and Marlena Zazula, president of the “RAZEM” Association Against Violence.
The training covered a range of topics. In addition to practical teamwork sessions, it addressed the mechanisms of violence and the psychological mechanisms of addiction. The cycle of violence is based on three phases. One of them is the so-called “honeymoon” period, when the abuser behaves like the best father and husband toward the family he has recently beaten or intimidated. This behavior explains why victims may believe that their tormentor has turned into an angel. It also explains why victims frequently withdraw their accusations.
The moderator leading the meeting explained the psychological mechanisms of addiction. Actors from Kraków performed highly suggestive scenes illustrating the system of illusion and denial, in which an alcoholic convinces himself and others that one small beer has never harmed anyone. They also depicted the mechanism of compulsively regulating emotions by improving one’s mood and drinking away loneliness, fear, and frustration, as well as the mechanism of a divided self: promising that from tomorrow one will stop drinking, change one’s habits, and alter one’s behavior.
Given the commitment invested in the training, there is hope that assistance for victims of violence in Bolesławiec can be effective. It must be noted, however, that helping addicted and socially withdrawn people is an extremely difficult and exhausting task, even for the best-organized teams.
(information: Grażyna Hanaf)