Eradication of Intimate Partner Violence against Men: The Role of Citizens’ Mediation Centre

                        

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 Eradication of Intimate Partner Violence against Men: The Role of Citizens’ Mediation Centre

Intimate partner violence against men has not attracted the desired attention from the society primarily due to the reluctance of men to speak out. This may partly be as a result of anticipated “injustice” and fear of stigmatization for reporting abuse. This has resulted in gross underreporting of the menace called Intimate Partner Violence against Men.

Due to the significance of marriage as a desirable and necessary societal status, few of many cases of domestic violence that get to our Magistrate courts are granted divorce, only when such cases are viewed by the deciding Judge as an extreme breakdown of relationship, particularly with traces of control and threat to life. On many occasions the court Judges often play the role of mediators by admonishing divorcing couples to go back home and think over their decision to separate before resorting to court litigation. Some Judges sometimes make statements like “I can see that you still love each other.”

Going by the above observation, the role of Citizens’ Mediation Centers cannot be overemphasized. Citizens’ Mediation Centres (CMC) are established to create opportunity for amicable settlement of violation of Human Rights, legal Rights and Responsibilities in relationships, and Domestic violence/Sexual offences among others.

Intimate partner violence against men forms an aspect of domestic violence offences. Domestic violence is a very complex case that requires a proper understanding of emotions. It is important to understand the depth of relationships and be able to comprehend the intentions of parties and help the victims to pick the right and the safe decision.

Mediation as a pre-litigation alternative for divorcing couples is growing in popularity and usage. In Nigeria today, some states have given formal recognition for the role and importance of mediation in settling domestic disputes. Hence, the establishment of various Mediation Centres across the country. Lagos State in particular is leading in this area of Citizens’ Mediation Centre establishment as an alternative to court litigation on issues of domestic violence. Virtually every Local Government Area in the state has a Citizens’ Mediation Centre popularly referred to as “Human Rights Office.” In addition to this, the Lagos State government has established a Public Advice Centre (PAC) as an arm of the state Ministry of Justice. It is an initiative of the state government “to provide its citizens easy access to information and advice on a wide range of issues” relating to Human Rights violation.

Mediation is a safe process for dealing with cases of domestic violence that involves majority in the disputes of divorce and child abuse. Mediators should give importance to every minute issue spoken, and ask the appropriate questions.

However, with particular reference to Intimate Partner Violence against Men, Mediators should know that when a man brings a report of spouse abuse to the Mediation Centre, such a man is one in a hundred of other men victims who, for obvious reasons, are not courageous enough to speak out. Hence, the Mediators should endeavor to listen to him with “special” attention. This is important because most men victims of spouse abuse are subjected to emotional torture rather than easy-to-recognize physical abuse. “Biased” responses should be avoided by Mediators when listening to the report of the man victim. For instance, a man who is under a distress of emotional abuse and threat to life from his spouse approaches a Mediation Centre for counselling. After narrating his story, the lady Mediator asked the victim: “what did you do to your wife to warrant her abuse?” A more appropriate question could have been: “what led to this abuse?” This would give the man the courage to speak more and to have confidence in the eventual counselling and advice of the Mediator.

Another area that could improve the counselling decisions of the Mediation Centres is to work out a modality of assigning a male Mediator to a male complainant. Intimate partner violence against men is a very sensitive emotional issue and could better be handled by a male Mediator, especially at the point of reporting abuse. This may reduce likely subjectivity in the counselling approach by the opposite sex.