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Silent Witnesses Reach Czech Republic
Awareness about domestic violence is growing in the Czech Republic. The organization ROSA (english) is pushing for a new law that could allow law enforcement greater authority in domestic violence situations. At present there is apparently no legal provision to allow police to separate abusers and victims. Even among other Central European countries--including Austria and Slovakia which allow grant greater jurisdiction to law enforcement--the Czechs are apparently far behind, even compared to neighbors Slovakia and Austria. Unfortunately many Czech MPs do not support any changes in the current law. According to a somewhat disturbing story from Czech Radio, some MPs fear the new law may be "abused," resulting in more "messy divorce cases." Surely there are plenty of divorce cases already, and this is obviously a pressing issue--ten women have already been killed in abusive relationships this year in the Czech Republic. The opposition seems to be another facet of strange ideas about "the family."
The Silent Witness project, begun in Minnesota, has supported a public exhibit to raise awareness about domestic violence and to cultivate community-based violence reduction efforts. Like their American inspiration, the Czech exhibits feature red silhouettes of abuse victims killed by abusers. The silhouettes are displayed in a semi-circle and bear information about the commemorated victim. Lighted candles stand in front of each silhouette.
The Silent Witness project, begun in Minnesota, has supported a public exhibit to raise awareness about domestic violence and to cultivate community-based violence reduction efforts. Like their American inspiration, the Czech exhibits feature red silhouettes of abuse victims killed by abusers. The silhouettes are displayed in a semi-circle and bear information about the commemorated victim. Lighted candles stand in front of each silhouette.
Posted 25 November 2005 at 23:31.
A graduate student in music and anthropology writing a dissertation about music in Moravia, the eastern third of the Czech Republic. At some point, the Czech Republic's "second city" (that would be Brno) captured my attention, and I've since been blogging about events, arts, music, and other stuff—basically whatever interests me in and around the cityscape. I'm not living in Brno now, but I keep up with the cultural pulse from afar as best I can.
Comments:
Good to know of some progress in this area. As we've already agreed, the depiction of domestic violence in Duše jako kaviar was depressing and made it look like everyone just accepts such behavior as normal (which I'm sure most people really don't).
I am reminded of a book I once proofread for Sage that had something to do with domestic violence. The authors had to point out that a woman deeply involved in the book's production (secretary? editorial assistant? I've forgotten exactly) was killed by her husband shortly before the book went to press.
11:57 AM, November 26, 2005
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