Domestic Violence and the World Cup

[LordPanofthePeaks]

I raise this after an exchange of emails with MN HQ and after checking the list of issues raised in this topic list.

Posters may or may not be aware of the significant rise in the experience of DV at the times of football tournaments, and most specifically the World Cup.

Anyone googling this issue will read some startling statistics, and would appreciate that as the tournament draws near this is a heighten time of risk to women. In the borough where I work the highest ever reporting time of DV was when England played Paraguay last time ( and won).

I don't wish to killjoy a fabulous event, but the darker side of it should not be ignored.

Nationally, DV incidents reported 'spike' at these times, and we can speculate why.
I do have a professional ( and personal) interest in this, and am keen to promote an awareness of this danger. I do have responsibilities in a public organisation for Domestic Violence, as well as Children and Families, and have noticed a lack of promotion of this danger which can be so easily predicted.

So I am inviting a discussion and pointers for how people, both perptrators and potential victims can do what they can to avoid this nasty experience. MN do not ahve a current DV campaign, though the strength of opinion from posters may change this.

Anyone?

Not WC related but if MN get on board with a DV campaign, it's worth mentioning that at my booking in appt when PG with DD, the MW asked my DH to leave the room so she could tell me that a shocking 90% of all DV starts during pregnancy.

He he Prole, I am sniggering at the way you are moving the goalposts.

From this

'Campaigns to raise public awareness can be v effective.'

To this.....

'And I'm looking forward to seeing this evidence moondog has that the media have no effect on people whatsoever.'

Go on, I insist you go first-give me the evidence for your first assertion.

I didn't know it was that high, gingerK. But when in hospital having given birth, was surprised at all the posters everywhere (in ladies' loo etc) regarding DV and pregnancy. Felt v bad for all the women whose experience of a newborn is ruined by bastard DP.

How can we bring our sons up better? Is the alcohol culture so ingrained as to be unchangeable? And are footballers (who all seem to be doggers from what I can gather) really the role models we want for our boys?

Have not read all this thread BUT from personal experience I can say YES DV is higher when football is on. Either the world cup or the persons home team. And nothing can change it happening at the time. It is a sad sad fact and a nasty one but also a very real one. And scarey as this is where children can be hurt

I think there is evidence that public campaigns work. Public attitudes to drink driving, smoking, wearing seat belts, using sun cream (the Australian Slip,Slap,Slop campaign), have changed in the last 30 years. Are you really saying that the public campaigns about them have had nothing whatsoever to do with those changing attitudes Moondog? Surely the change in attitudes is evidence that the campaigns work?

On their own they don't, but if they work with PR and agencies on the ground (eg police actually bothering to enforce the law, as with drink driving and generating editorial material, doctors nagging patients not to smoke, etc.) they do have an effect, all the measures feed into each other. Unless you are going to claim that attitudes would have changed without the campaigns.

But why can't anything be done to change it? Isn't that the problem? Letting men get away with it??? anticipating that it is NORMAL??

Not only scary that children can be hurt but v v scary that women can be hurt?

moonie - what is your point? I do see that some trendy, lentil-weaving types can get up your nose, and mine too. But this isn't about that sort of stuff. It's about stuff that happens and is nasty, affects lots of children, and we can see it coming. It's just to raise awareness of it, which is pitifully short in supply so people can make decisions to aid the prevention of it's occurence. So listen to some cool tunes and breathe.

Domestic violence, like child abuse, has always been seen to be something that's best off not spoken about. There's a bigger taboo about it so it does need to be handled very carefully. It's not the same as drink driving, this is seen as socially unacceptable so it's OK to have publicity around it as it's no longer a taboo topic, to do this with domestic violence needs clear strategies. Campaigns do work, they take time though and they need careful handling. It is very unnacceptable to hit your partner.

Pan, I thoguht I made my point.
Raising awareness doesn't generally work because message gets out to those who believe in it anyway.Obviously I don';t want to be dismissive of good peopel and their eforts but as a society we have to take a good hard look at what works and what doesn't.

Subject very close to my heart-I am preparing a lecture on evidence based practice right now.

I believe in evidence-based practice. Do it all the time, as it goes. I ask for evidence each time I am presented with a problem.

But you are ignoring the points raised about seat belts, drink driving, apartheid, the franchise etc. How campaigns are handled DO affect their effectiveness, yes, but it is tricky to pick out how changes ahve been affected by campaigns.

and for the very last time...I am not asking for a campaign, just a level of awareness raising. If others wish ot pick that up then fine.

I asked you first.
Please give me your evidence for your first assertion.

moonie - you want to take the thread away from it's purpose. That's up to you, but it isn't doing a great deal of good.

I see your point of wanting to raise awareness but is it remembered when someone's trollied?

I have emailed you pan.

Ok, what can we do?

Raise prices on alcohol?
Reduce dominance of football over everything?
Stop paying footballers so much money?

I would personally endorse all 3 but unlikey in a free world.

Sorry, raise price of booze I mean.
There is sound evidence that reducing access to cheap booze cuts down on violence, domestic and otherwise as well as myriad health issues.

All three sound like a good plan.

There's 2 types of perpetrator (sorry about the spelling), the ones that regularly hurt their partner and the ones that are drunk, emotionally 'not with it' and are least likely to do it again. You can't target both in the same way as there's different things making them tick.

I get the point made by Moondog about preaching to the converted, but I think that campaigns do make a difference, as a smoker who has to occupy the status of a social pariah after only a few years of government finger-wagging!

belle - replied.

I've recieved that and have replied very quickly (I'm multitasking).

I have a good pal who head's the criminology department at the Uni if you need any help/advice. She's a survivor of DV.

I need to pop off.

I hope this thread is of some purpose, and hope it keeps on going until it is not needed anymore.

As I said at the start, it was an awareness-raising purpose, not a campaign call, though that would be welcolme if it happened. Women and men could make decisions about how to avoid bad things happening if difficulties can be anticipated.
The World Cup is an intriguing thing to some, and a bore to others, but it shouldn't be a dangerous thing.

It's something to do with the testosterone high the men get when they're all together, is it not? Alcohol raises testosterone too so that's definitely part of the problem
I like moondog's solutions, but I don't think a campaign can do any harm.

DOes anyone remember a film called I.D? That was about football events leading to DV and rape.

I've been thinking about this issue quite a lot. I thought incidents of DV always increased with football - Saturday match days and then events like the World Cup or European Cup really heightening it.

I think it would be helpful if more footballers actually got involved in anti-DV campaigning but then they might have to actually not be seen to condone this behaviour in their colleagues.

I also don't see any harm in an awareness campaign - if only so that those who know women who are in danger can keep a closer eye on them and know that the police will respond if called.

As for why it happens - not that difficult to work out. DV perpetrators are bullies. They have a huge rush of emotions/aggression etc, often fuelled by alcohol, and then have nothing to do with those feelings. They go home and take it out on someone who can't fight bad.

I wonder how many women will be hospitalised or worse. It makes me feel sick and furious that so many people will be dreading this event because they will sure to be on the receiving end of someone's fist.

The evidence that public campaigns work, is that attitudes and behaviour have changed. It is no longer socially acceptable to drink and drive. The rates of smoking have plummeted. Most people now think wearing seat-belts is a good idea, not an attack on their basic human rights.

When the public information campaigns on these issues first started, of course they were preaching to the converted. But over a period of years, the majority have been converted.

Isn't that evidence? Or are we really going to pretend that police enforcement and Lancet articles about the link between smoking and illness alone are responsible for such changes in attitudes in the last few decades?