(IPS) feature

By Hao's own account, Tranh used to be very kind and gentle. But that was before they got married. Now, says Hao, Tranh often comes home drunk late at night, and curses and beats her when she dares to complain.

Tranh thinks it is his right to treat Hao in this manner. He says simply, when confronted, ''I must give her a lesson.''

Social workers say such an attitude is common among Vietnamese men. They add that this is partly why domestic violence remains a problem in this country, occurring in all regions and in families of all income levels.

In Ho Chi Minh City alone, phone information centres report that nearly 85 percent of emergency phone calls involve domestic violence. Le Minh Nga, director of a family counselling centre, also says that her institution deals with some 200 cases of family violence each day.

According to sociologists, all throughout the world, domestic violence exists because of socially and culturally prescribed roles in which women are subservient to men.

This is true in Vietnam, where there is even an adage that says children should be taught when they are still small, while wives should be taught on their first day with their new family.

Moreover, Vietnamese women are supposed to be responsible for maintaining peace and harmony in the home while men are thought to be naturally ''hot-tempered'' and possessing less emotional control.

False mark of manhood

Exacerbating the problem, however, is the notion that heavy drinking is a mark of manhood. As another old saying goes, ''A man without a drink is like a flag without wind.''

Hao herself says, ''Drinking is okay, especially when it helps you maintain social relations.'' But she quickly clarifies that she would want Tranh to watch his alcohol intake, so that he would not beat her up.

Indeed, a freshly released survey conducted by the Vietnam Women Association (VWA) says that half of the women interviewees stated that they got beaten up whenever their husbands were drunk.

Another survey on some 1,795 Ho Chi Minh City women who were abused by their husbands also says that 80.2 percent of the respondents reported alcohol as among the main factors leading to their being beaten up by their spouses.

Yet the survey stresses that the respondents also cited adultery (65.7 percent) and sexual inequality (55 percent) as among the other major factors.

Economic hardship

The VWA study itself says that besides alcohol abuse, domestic violence in Vietnam stems from economic hardship and ''issues of sexuality'', such as adultery, jealousy and sexual incompatibility.

Sometimes, the wives end up black and blue just because they are not in the mood for sex. According to Ho Thi Minh Nguyet, editor-in-chief of Phu Nu (Women) magazine, at least 20 percent of those who call her publication's hotlines say they were even burnt or splashed with acid by their angry spouses.

In this age of market reforms, many women actually say working all day long make them too exhausted to want sex — which have made some of them victims of espousal violence.

Says Nguyen Thi Ai, who got beaten up by her husband because she came up short of his sexual expectations: ''Sex should always be mutually desired.''

The VWA study, though, says that women with a broad range of contacts are generally less susceptible to gender-based violence, possibly because of their greater economic independence. It also notes that the higher the educational attainment of the spouses, the lower the rates of verbal and physical abuse.

As Vu Thi Oanh, a 25-year-old college graduate, declares, ''I just got married. But I think if I do not want to have sex and my husband keeps forcing me to have it, this can be considered as an abuse and an illegal act.''

Unreported domestic violence

But then the VWA study says as well that those with higher levels of educational attainment have a greater tendency to hide their problems.

As it is, most cases of domestic violence already go unreported to theproper authorities.

Observes the study: ''Many women think that domestic violence is normal. Even in cases when a wife gets injured because of a beating or when she is beaten repeatedly, she will rarely shout out for help or call for local authorities.''

But another obvious reason why women keep mum is that many are scared to testify against their husbands. Some also consider the effort useless since it is well know that many officials consider violence as ''unavoidable'' in family life.

The thinking among such officials is that domestic violence should be considered illegal and socially unacceptable only when a woman is really ''innocent'' of any wrongdoing. Thus, even when a case of wife-beating does reach a court, magistrates are reluctant to punish offenders.

Patriarchal norms

As Supreme Court justice Nguyen Khac Cong put it, ''Few women are brave enough to speak against husband because they feel trapped by patriarchal norms.''

He also said during a four-day workshop on domestic violence held last month in Hanoi, ''Most of the time, they (judges) ask for reconciliation and forgiveness than punishment when domestic violence (cases) make it to court.''

According to Cong, this makes for a dangerous situation ''as it can mean that violence will happen again''.

Pascale Baeriswyl, attache at the Swiss Embassy in Hanoi and an expert in the fight against domestic violence, agreed with that remark.

She also said that women would never achieve equal rights until they were free from the threat of violence. She suggested that Vietnamese would feel more secure when the country adopts something like the ''domestic abuse intervention'' model that has been used successfully in the United States.