What are the reasons of violence against women in Greece?

Question

The Greek Research Center on Equality Matters (KETHI) stressed that violence against women is not caused by poverty and unemployment in Greece. Rather, the cause for violence against women is the fact that Greek society does not recognize substantial equality between men and women in every day life.,as they recognize and tolerate the presence of homosexuality in Greek society. Violence against women is easily excused, at least more than any other form of violence is excused, and many times the victim is accused of provoking such violence.. Men learn that it is their right to control the mind, heart and life of their women, and learn to feel security when their companion is dependent and submitted. A completely independent female companion breeds insecurity since it is not her priority to make a man happy. Women themselves learn to be submissive, to be patient with violence, to remain silent and not demanding. As a result, there is a lack of solidarity among women who experience violence that reinforces inactivity against violence.
It has been estimated that 83% of Greek women has suffered from some form of domestic abuse, either psychological or physical; 16% of these women have experienced psychological, physical and sexual violence together.

http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/bhr/english/organizations/ghm_omct_cedaw.doc

This is a question to men : Why do you commit violence towards women?

Why do you need to get defensive ? I did not prepare the report.

Answer 1

You can thumbs down me but you cannot silence me!!
Of course there IS violence against women in Greece, at least that I remember. Working in an ENT (ear nose throat) emergency room in a large hospital in Greece I often encountered broken noses, cuts and bloody faces of women, all results of "domestic dispute". We would just patch up their faces the best we could from the physical scars...(the emotional were a different story) and send them home again...
That was more than 25 years ago.Nobody talked about the details then, there were no other ways to protect those women, no shelters to hide them, no reports, nothing. Women were dependent on their husbands financially and were afraid to go against them
Now, I am not sure where the issue is standing as I am away from Greece for long time. I honestly hope there is great progress and support to women. I would like to see shelters and insitutions being developed to protect women from their husbands, if it still is a problem in Greece (and why it shouldn't be? the sons learn from their fathers).
I would like to see action taken and not just keep numbers and statistics.
Greece cannot afford to have another woman,victim of domestic violence, become another statistic.
For the rest of you who hide your head in the sand I have to say one thing: Wake up and look around you!!! Maybe you are too ignorant to face reality or you dont want to accept responsibility of your actions and plain deny it.Domestic abuse happens all over this planet, Greece is not an exception. Until we educate our young and show them the right behavior by example, until we take measures and built shelters and laws against it,domestic abuse is not going to go away
Waiting to hear from women in Greece what the situation is now, I am not interested on numbers and percentages, I want to hear from real women who either experienced or witnessed domestic violence. How it affected them,their children and families and how are they coping now..It would be interesting to discuss in here,let's see who dares bring it up in the open...or email me for private discussion
I sure hope things have changed in Greece in recent years, it has been a quarter of century already!!!

eleni_g: This is a quote from the same atricle you are referring to:
Οι ελληνίδες γυναίκες θύματα βίας που κατέφυγαν σε Κέντρο στη μεγαλύτερη πλειονότητα ανήκουν στην ηλικιακή ομάδα 45-55 ετών. Και έχουν υποστεί όλες τις μορφές βίας.

* Το 73% σωματική και ψυχολογική βία.

* Το 15,1% σεξουαλική και ψυχολογική βία.

* Το 11,9% μόνο ψυχολογική βία.

Οι γυναίκες αυτής της ηλικιακής ομάδας έχουν συμβιώσει με τον δράστη πάνω από 20 χρόνια γάμου, έχουν εξαντλήσει όλα τα όρια της αντοχής τους, συχνά με τίμημα τη σωματική και την ψυχική τους υγεία. Την κοινωνική απομόνωση. Την αποχώρηση από την εργασία τους ύστερα από απαίτηση-απαγόρευση του δράστη. Την απομάκρυνση από το άμεσο οικογενειακό τους περιβάλλον. Και τη σύγκρουση, την απόρριψη από τα παιδιά-εφήβους, που στις περισσότερες περιπτώσεις καταλογίζουν την ευθύνη σε εκείνη για όσα έχουν βιώσει στην οικογένεια.

Are Greek women refusing to face the truth???
If so, how do we expect men to change their behavior????

Answer 2

reasons violence women greece

Answer 3

I fast read the report and I could not figure how they estimated the 83%.
So I read the reference instead (see below) and it appears that the 83% was 83 of 100 women who called for help in a call center, not the 83% of all Greek women.
I guess it is a very bad citation and bad explanation of statistics.
Furthermore keep in mind that this report is old. Some of the laws have changed since. Violence is everywhere, but I am not sure that there can be clear statistics about it.

Answer 4

Get the data right:

You state that Greek women remain silent but then 86% of the Greek women spoke out already..! So much about silence no?

Since I am not a brilliant scientist as you are, I love getting my references right:

Starting from the Institute you claimed the data come form:
From the Greek Research Center on Equality Matters (KETHI): "Among all women interviewed, 3,6% suffered physical abuse and 3,5% were forced in sexual contact. Finally, only 8,8% considers their spouse/intimate partners as violent."
http://www.kethi.gr/english/bia/index.htm

Then I checked your numbers through the European Commission's webpages on Gender Equality: "The percentages across all 15 European union countries range from 3 to 12% (which is high but not as high as...86%). In all countries, these numbers are heavily dependent on the economic, educational and geographic status of the household and strongly linked to social tags such as alcoholism, divorced families, drugs and so on."
http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/gender_equality/index_en.html

But sorry I forgot...! You are the scientist...

Edit: No one is defensive. Your numbers are wrong. I proved my case (see above). Are we gonna open a discussion on wrong numbers? Get the data right first.

Answer 5

The real report was clearly explained
by Frank b answer's.
In reality women abuse in Greece is far less than any other European countries!
If you bother to check the KETHI site you would have read the following:

"The issue of domestic violence was raised by the Women's Movement at the beginning of the 1970s in Europe and the USA and somewhat later in Greece after the political changeover when independent women's groups with feminist demands were formed."

And the following :
"Since then, many of the demands of women's movement have been achieved and approaches to pursuing others have changed."

And of course the research is clear and completely disagrees with the numbers you gave!:
“According to the results of the research, 56% (and not 86%) of the women interviewed, have experienced verbal and/or psychological violence,
3,6% suffered physical abuse and 3,5% were forced in sexual contact. Moreover, 23,6% of women mentioned that they were familiar with another woman from their related and/or friendly environment who has been or is a victim of domestic violence from the spouse/intimate partner. Finally, only 8,8% considers their spouse/intimate partners as violent.”

Next time try to use real facts and make sure that you don’t use as a source such biased and heavily controlled organizations such as Helsinki monitor watch! (An American made organizations whose only purpose is to promote “American values” to the former communist countries).
Using fake numbers from the report and presenting it in such a fake way clearly explains how ill-informed you are or you deliberately wanted to attack Greece.

( I forgot!! There is a clone user of Sigzag!!! Be carefull!!! He is not the real one!! Ignore his answer!!!)

Answer 6

You seem to answer your own question. Men are violent toward women because they can get away with it, legally and in the opinions of those around them. Add to that the history of violence against women. We learn how to behave from our parents. If a boy grows up in a family where dad hits mom and mom lets him, for whatever reason, get away with it, the boy thinks that's how he's supposed to behave. A girl growing up in the same kind of family will think that's she's supposed to be the victim.

I hope that figure of 83% is exaggerated. I have some dear friends in Nea Smyrni, and I know the mother of the family is a member of the 17%.

With women like you and men like my friend, things will change. It will take way too long, but things will change.

Answer 7

it only shows how uneducated some men are,they would hit their wife or mum.Its The same to them.I seen a drunk son in his 50's slapping his mum on a balcony in volos on Easter day!!! In civilised societies this would cause the police to immediately come and throw the pig in jail.In there no one batted an eyelid,as people who got involved in the past had his dogs lose on them.Hitting women ,in any culture I think is despicable act.But then is it not us the Greeks who wonder if we the Europeans of the middle east or the middle Easterners of Europe?The latter in my opinion,unfortunately,what with dowries and arranged marriages still running in Greece.Still may be one day we can educate the youngsters enough and they will take us out of always running 100 behind.

Answer 8

The reason for domestic violence that you mentioned is the same throughout Europe, US, and the developped world in general, of which Greece is part. Violence is not higher in Greece than the average of Europe. 83% is definitely wrong, but it contains psychological abuse which could be anything really. Sure all couples exchange insults sometime. I have even slapped my husband once, although I don't consider this as though I tortured him or anything! And we are happy ever since, I just got mad once. So this 83% and the question is probably a way to disgrace Greece, as there is no particular problem of the sort in this country.

Answer 9

There is no need to be defensive when it comes to this subject, but I must tell you that, unfortunately, violence against women happens everywhere, so there is no need to put national prefix to it.
According to Amnesty int. :
· In Canada the costs of violence against the family amount to $1.6 billion per year, including medical care and lost productivity (UNICEF 2000).
· In the USA a woman is battered, usually by her husband/partner, every 15 seconds (UN Study on the World’s Women, 2000)
· In Spain one woman every five days was killed by her male partner in 2000 (Joni Seager, The Atlas of Women)
· About two women per week are killed by their partners in the United Kingdom (Joni Seager, 2003)
· In the Russian Federation 36,000 women are beaten on a daily basis by their husband or partner, according to Russian non-governmental organizations (OMCT 2003)

Violence against women in Turkey (including bride price/marital rape/virginity testing and all kinds of bizarre things):
http://www.omct.org/pdf/VAW/Publications/2003/Eng_2003_09_Turkey.pdf
In Estonia:
http://www.omct.org/pdf/VAW/Publications/2003/Eng_2003_06_Estonia.pdf
Hungary:
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR270022007?open&of=ENG-2EU
etc, etc, etc
How sad, don't yout think?
This subject must be discussed from women's point, doesn't matter what nationality they are. For sake of us all.

Answer 10

The same as every were in the west including of course USA: lack of comprehencion and pure evil.I would appreciate it very much if you could tell us your nationality otherwhise you seem to be a text -book case of a practionaire of balck propaganda since your numbers do not relate with the reality

Answer 11

Turkish men don't do it. They are so gentle. I recommend anyone to go out and get one. I like them. I am Armenian.