Recent press reports have claimed that "husband battery" is on the rise in Egypt, yet all too often women are still the victims of domestic violence, finds Ahmed Mahmoud According to press and online reports, a recent study has shown that 21 per cent of husbands in Egypt are the victims of domestic violence, with the highest ratio being in upscale neighbourhoods and among the higher social classes. In low- income neighbourhoods the ratio is 18 per cent, the same reports claim. Yet, according to Samiha Nasr, a researcher at the National Centre for Criminal Studies, these reports are wrong, and no such study was ever undertaken. While the reports based their figures on Nasr's own research, she is furious about the way she claims that the press has distorted her remarks. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Nasr said that she had never said that violence against husbands was on the rise. "I have done many studies about violence, and the study that I did about domestic violence was specifically about violence against women, not against husbands. To my knowledge, no study has yet been done about violence against husbands in Egypt," she said. Nasr writes extensively about social changes related to violence, and her studies cover cases of murder, manslaughter, battery leading to permanent disability, rape, arson and robbery. While she has not investigated domestic violence against men, Nasr says that women's approach to violence is changing. In the past, female criminals used to drug their victims before carrying out a crime. However, more recently such criminals have started using weapons, including guns and knives, in carrying out their crimes. "Women's crimes are not particularly committed against husbands. I was misquoted. My study doesn't show that women direct their violence primarily against husbands," Nasr stresses. Furthermore, the reported claim that Egypt is the second country in the world in terms of husband battery is untrue. "A handful of cases do not constitute a trend," Nasr adds. According to Nihad Abul-Qomsan, director of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights (ECWR), inaccurate reporting is actually more common than husband battery. "For one to speak of a trend, one needs to survey a large sample of society. Even police reports are not a good indicator, for the assaults reported to the police are far fewer than those that actually take place," Abul-Qomsan says. She follows up reports related to women, and she has never come across a study on husband battery, she says. But, she adds, it is common during divorce cases for husbands to claim that their wives beat them, for this strengthens their case in court. Furthermore, when a wife files a battery report against her husband, it is common for the husband to file a report claiming that she beat him as well. "This way, he has a better chance to escape punishment," Abul-Qomsan says. According to Abul-Qomsan, 90 per cent of the battery reports filed by husbands in Egypt are untrue. The husbands involved are merely trying to fend off charges of battery or deprive their wives of their full divorce rights. "We cannot say that there is a new trend going on. Instead, these are merely legal machinations. As for the numbers that have been published, I doubt their accuracy. And I can tell you of instances in the past when the press attributed to me facts and figures that I never said," Abul-Qomsan says. Feminist activist Azza Kamel also maintains that there is an ongoing campaign to discredit women's rights groups through disseminating misleading statistics. Over the past five years, she says, women's groups have come up with new strategies to combat violence in general and violence against women in particular. "We have created centres where social workers listen to battered women and offer them psychological, social and legal help. Consequently, people now know more about domestic violence against women, which has gone off the charts. Statistics tell a terrible story about women's rights in this country," Kamel says. According to a report released by the Earth Centre for Human Rights, the press reported 412 cases of violence against women within the span of six months in 2007. Of these, 96 cases were of abduction and rape, 41 cases were of murder, 54 cases were of domestic violence, 83 cases were related to marital disputes, 44 cases were related to medical neglect, and 33 cases were of suicide. In total, 220 women died as a result of such abuse. Surveys also tell other tragic stories. A 2008 survey indicated that 39 per cent of women interviewed said that they were beaten if they left the house without permission, neglected their children, talked back to their husband, refused to have sex, or burned the food. Globally, the numbers are alarming as well. A study summarising 50 surveys conducted across the world found that at least one woman in three has been beaten or forced to have sex in her lifetime. In most cases, the culprit was a family member or a friend. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly 70 per cent of female homicide victims are killed by their male partners. In a WHO survey of 16 countries, researchers found that the levels of violence conducted by an intimate partner are at their lowest in countries that have collective restraints discouraging the phenomenon. Legal measures, moral pressures and safe houses all help to reduce violence against women. Many people believe that domestic violence is more prevalent among the less-educated and poorer classes. Some believe that domestic violence is caused by modern economic and social pressures. It is also sometimes said that women are in some way "responsible" for the phenomenon, because they fail to heed the instructions of their husbands. Also, some people are under the impression that the men who perpetrate violence are mostly addicts or mental patients. None of the above claims has ever been supported by researchers. During her years of activism, Kamel has seen and heard many stories of domestic violence against women. One of the stories that she encountered in a centre for battered women outside Cairo was about a young girl who got married 14 years ago. She was only 15 at the time. She lived with her husband's family and had to put up with suffering, insults and degradation. "My husband would insult me, curse me and beat me in front of my son and daughter. Then my mother-in-law would come in and insult me and beat me with her slippers. She would tell me that she had to discipline me because my parents didn't do a good job," the young woman told Kamel. In addition to all this, her brother-in-law used to sexually harass her. "My husband's brother would hit on me whenever he had the chance, and the one time I complained, my husband beat me and my mother-in-law beat me too. They sent me back to my family, but my father brought me back to my husband's house and told me to put up with the beating." Kamel comments that in Egypt "this case is not an isolated one, though many in this country try to belittle the phenomenon of domestic violence against women. People with fundamentalist tendencies, for instance, often accuse women's rights groups of being too 'Westernised' and 'un-Islamic'. Some people even invent statistics to undermine women's rights." So far, no studies by government or independent agencies have indicated that husbands are becoming a common target of domestic violence in Egypt, despite the sensational press reports. In the few cases that women committed violence against husbands, experts say, this was in reaction to systematic and repeated acts of violence against the women involved.
