COMMENT | It is ironic that just within days of celebrating International Women's Day, reports of women being brutally murdered have made headlines in the Malaysian media. From being strangled, stabbed, shot and buried, many of these were the result of domestic violence.

And yet, Women, Family and Community Development Minister Rina Harun said that there could be many factors contributing to men committing domestic violence, one of which could be stress caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The statement made by the minister ignores the fact that women have also lost their jobs and experience stress as a result of the pandemic too. In fact, numerous studies have again and again emphasised the disproportionate impact that the pandemic has on women that not only affects their professional opportunities but also makes the burdens borne by them at home much more demanding.

More importantly, it does not feel right that a minister was making excuses for the abusive behaviour of men. Instead of addressing women and telling them that "guidance and counselling" are available for them, she should be addressing men to tell them that being stressed out because of the pandemic is no excuse for striking your wife.

The minister should have emphasised on the legal consequences of domestic violence and rallied enforcement powers to not only protect women but also ensure that they are accorded the justice they deserve.

Instead, the minister urged women not to let themselves become victims of domestic violence. She said that women need to "notice changes in their husbands and not just keep quiet all the time".

The minister needs to understand that women do not simply “let themselves become victims of domestic violence” and that very few survivors of domestic violence are able to speak up in many cases. Why? Because we, as a society, have yet to make it safe enough for women to come forward when they face abuse.

In so many situations, families, friends, and even the Syariah court would attempt to counsel and reconcile the marriage, most at the time with women urged to compromise. Her word against his, women are frequently reminded to be patient, obedient and dutiful. She is reminded to honour her husband, not to expose his weaknesses to the world, and not to bring shame to the family.

We still take it for granted that women can easily walk out of the house when confronted by violence. We still assume that she has somewhere to go. The truth is, years of disempowerment, control and isolation have defeated her faith in her own voice and her own strength. Violence is often not only a physical experience but psychological, emotional, financial and even spiritual as well.

Politicians telling women to resolve domestic violence issues with karate and then in the bedroom, only goes to show how ignorant we are, as a society, to the serious trauma of marital rape - which is still legal, by the way.

Online and offline, we also still practise victim-blaming and in doing so, fail to provide necessary protection for women who try to rescue themselves from these situations. Every time an incident of domestic violence is reported in the news, their headlines are sensationalised to show the consequences to women, instead of calling out the crime of the perpetrator. Things like this have conditioned us to look at what the woman did to end up dead and serves as a warning to other women, not to complain so much.

Now imagine if the woman is a child. Why? Because we continue to drag our feet in criminalising child marriage in Malaysia and this reflects the reality of the many thousands of underage married girls in the country. Being a child bride does not exempt her from domestic violence. In fact, studies have shown that child brides risk an even greater exposure to the trauma of domestic violence because of their underdeveloped maturity level.

What is missing from all of this is our outrage, as a society with both predators and survivors of domestic violence living among us, and as a government that has the power to do something about it. We keep trying to dispense advice to the survivors, instead of addressing the perpetrators of the violence. We need to understand that women are not the problem here, men who abuse are.

Because for many women, it is the difference between life and death.

MAJIDAH HASHIM is a human rights defender. She can be contacted via Twitter at @majidahhashim.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.