Redefining Violence

This week has seen the start of the Gender Based Violence Online Discussion, part of the civil society consultation for the framework that will emerge to take over from the Millennium Development Goals after 2015. It’s also only a few weeks since the announcement that the definition of domestic violence will be widened in the UK to include psychological abuse and violence against 16 and 17 year olds from next March. Both of these are good signs of the greater recognition being given to the serious issue of gender based violence.

This is particularly poignant for me this week after an incident where a previously abusive ex-partner of mine attempted to gain access to my Facebook profile information by posing as long lost relative. This fake profile attempted to friend my account, as well as sending requests to dozens of my Facebook friends. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and she’s previously used the information she could access through this connection to stalk me online and in person. Back then I was a naïve 19 year old who used all the courage I could gather to get out of that abusive relationship. I endured nearly a year of harassment after the relationship ended, not sure whether what I was subject to was a crime or how I could prove anything. Because that’s the thing about psychological abuse – it’s not even just blaming yourself, it gets to the point that you start questioning what’s happening to you at all. After almost 12 months of things escalating, I felt I had definite evidence - I told her if she didn’t stop I’d take this all to the police. And I didn’t hear from her again…well until this week.

This time I immediately reported the account through Facebook’s built-in reporting feature and 24 hours later the account was removed from the site. I’ve tightened my security settings too (even more than they were already).

And this is why I’m happy that people are discussing and redefining gender based violence. Yes it does happen in same-sex relationships, yes it does happen all over the world, yes it does happen to young people – relationship abuse doesn’t wait for an 18^th birthday! We need to talk about it so that generations to come grow up knowing what constitutes a healthy relationship, and feel empowered to deal with it as soon as it happens.