How Innovation Is Making Global Poverty History

IN A fictitious village in Africa lives a farming family very representative of many farming families in poverty stricken regions in the world. Jamu is a pre-teen girl who is hungry, typically sick with fever, and unable to read or write. She would love an education, but must stay at home to help her mother who has to walk two kilometres twice daily to draw water.

Somi is a little better off compared with his older sister; at least he goes to school — well, that is until he’s too sick to go. He’s had four life-threatening cases of diahorrea in the past year. You see, the whole village relies on water sources that are at the root of the disease and ill-health in the town. There is one good well in town, but the person who manages it limits access to the best water for fear that the pump will break down.

Mathu, father of Jamu and Somi and their two siblings, is husband to Kayla. She battles to manage the logistics of the home to keep the family alive. Mathu works hard on the farm, but yields get lower and lower each year because deforestation in the region has led to the once nutrient-rich top soil to be frequently washed away due to torrential season rains. The whole family constantly battle fatigue.

The teacher at the local school, Aruna, battles with the 50 percent attendance at school and is frequently not able to make school himself as he needs additional work to survive — the school can’t afford to pay him more than a pittance.

Michael is the Minister for Regional Affairs and Infrastructure in the government of the country and would love to help, but his poor country has little influence brokering competitive deals for infrastructure for the country in a global market. His government isn’t corrupt as much as it’s limited by true economic factors.

Jompa is a local product who’s been fortunate enough to get an education as an agriculturalist — he knows the root of the problem is the cutting down of trees for wood to burn. Electricity would address this town’s poverty concerns, but who could possibly afford to set up that infrastructure?

Josephine has moved away from town into the city and is proud to make T-shirts of such quality they’re exported to America and Australia and are sold for over $50 a piece — but she’s paid less than a hundredth of that. She battles to make ends meet and still sends a little back to her family in her home village.

***

The poor (those that live on less than $1.25 a day) have a radically different experience of life and worldview as compared with us Westerners.

Poverty is a complex problem. It’s an injustice problem, not an incompetence problem. The poor have wisdom, hopes and dreams and are active as they can be in trying to improve their lot. But their livelihoods and assets are precarious, seasonal and inadequate. Their capabilities are compromised by a lack of information, education, skills and confidence. Their institutions are disempowering and exclusionary. Their organisations are weak and disconnected. Physically they’re hungry, exhausted, sick, and they also suffer from a lack of self-esteem because of their appearance. They’re often abused and disregarded by the more powerful. They live in isolated, unserviced, risky and stigmatised areas. They lack sense of security and peace of mind. Gender polarisations are troubling and marked.

Where Innovation Comes In

The goals of international development, very broadly speaking, are to make a high positive impact and achieve sustainability.

Poverty is a complex system any way we look at it. The first steps that those into international development are looking to do are to analyse the problem, the consequences, and the causes — to really understand the dozens of factors that must be taken into account if solutions are to be not only helpful, but of true benefit over the long term.

Then it’s about determining the assets that a community might draw upon to solve their own problems for the longer term.

***

The good news on the global stage is we’re winning the battle to end poverty!

In 1990 12.7 million children died before they reached five years of age. In 2015, that figure is six million. And whilst that figure is six million too many, there is much to be encouraged by that the strategies to halve poverty in this quarter century have been achieved. But, of course, there’s still more work to do.

It’s good to end with hope. Making poverty history in our time is not only possible, but likely. How good is God that when we dignify the poor, believing they can solve their own problems with our advocacy against their injustices, he makes a way for them to climb into the stratosphere of living hope — a future they believe for; for their children and grandchildren.

But we can never get complacent. If poverty is an injustice issue, even if we end poverty, it may easily reappear, as has slavery. We must be generous supporters and avid advocates, finding a way of making a lattice of good intentions woven through wise practices, in making maximum positive and sustainable impact.

***

Acknowledgement: this article was inspired by a Maximum Impact wonderfully engaging workshop I attended run by Scott Higgins of Baptist World Aid Australia, organised by Dushan Jeyabalan, on November 18, 2015, in Perth, Western Australia. All of the content in this article was discussed at this workshop. Graphic above is from Baptist World Aid Australia.

Bringing Kleenex to a Gun Fight… and Winning

CRISES, I find, are just as potent for hearing God as ever. God warned me:

“You’re bringing Kleenex to a gun fight, so watch out for how this is going to play out!”

The fact of the matter is we’re so poorly equipped to fight the battles we must fight that we’re easily knocked to the ground. We don’t anticipate the battles the enemy is bringing our way, and we usually don’t have anywhere near the poise we need to respond in an appropriate way. Little wonder that we’re floored most of the time. We’re bringing Kleenex to a gun fight. Sounds like not only a waste of time, but a perilous waste. Certain defeat is inevitable.

But there’s the reverse of this situation — the only way to fight in a gun fight is to fight back with the Kleenex. And this is the way life works through what life expects of our response. Whilst the world normally fights back in a gun fight with a gun, the world also resents it when we fight in a gun fight with a gun. Inevitably a pistol dual wreaks casualties. Gun fights make problems worse.

Whilst the world’s default is ‘an eye for an eye’ our common sense should say to us that fighting that way backfires most of the time. What seems most just is actually foolish. What is really wise is doing what nobody really thinks (or wants) to do… unless you have something of the humility of Jesus.

Bringing Kleenex to a gun fight is fighting by the faith that suggests love is a supreme answer — for which it is — if not in this life, certainly in the next (and that should be good enough for any Christian).

Kleenex suggests more than a modicum of empathy. A gun suggests counterattack will be required.

***

Life brings war on many personal levels daily, but the only way life works is if we fight to bring peace to every conflict.

Life only works out well when we bring a good response to the battles that infuse themselves to our experience.

Every day has a hundred or more battles which we don’t know about, yet life (the people who are important to us, that is) expects us to respond graciously.

***

Another way to look at it is this:

War and peace,

The first has casualties,

The second brings release.

Life is war yet we must bring peace. War has casualties, and wherever there’s such destruction we can assured there’s much tension. Peace brings release and healing and space for wholeness to return.

The wisdom of life is converting many battles of unexpected war into peace that lasts.

***

As it turned out I was glad that God saw fit to remind me of the terrible battle that could be waged against me the very next morning — a potential battle of life or death. God knew that I knew that I’d have to have a worthy Kleenex response to tidy that sort of mess up.

Only as we wait on him in the moment do we receive grace enough to reach for the Kleenex and not grapple in our gun cupboard.

Life brings us to war daily, yet life also expects us to make peace with each battle.

It’s not the battles that are brought to bear that count, but our response. Our response can amend any battle.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Paris and the Morning After Seconds of Madness

ONE thing we have to get used to is more violence of Paris proportions. We’ve known this for decades, but it’s only as we enter another phase of trauma over the attacks in Paris do we realise how close terrorism is to us all. We cannot escape it. It’s part of our system now.

Notwithstanding the fear that intuits, there’s a great deal of confusion and grief and bewilderment going around; an outpouring for the people of France, and a fresh torrent for Beirut and other regions, too.

Growing up in the 1980s there was a constant fear of nuclear war. The 90s brought us the HIVAIDS crisis. Since 9/11 it’s been terrorism. We’ve always had something on a global stage to fear.

But grief is different.

Children watch the extended Media coverage and may not know how to unpack their reactions. They may not know how to unpack their parents’ reactions. Then there’s social media. Of course, there are the inevitable hero stories that restore our faith in the goodness of humanity to draw together in unified solidarity. Thank God for propaganda… truly: one good thing in our technologically advanced world.

Grief is the response we have, in this case, for the loss of our freedoms. Change is coming because of extremists’ perversion of a life they don’t deserve. But we’d be grossly selfish if that’s all we lamented.

Seconds is all it took. A bomb blasts. Gunfire rings out around a packed arena. Bullets fly around a rock concert. The innocence of a pure moment is putrefied. The joy turns immediately to mass panic, to shock, later to anger, to numbness, to wailing, and to a myriad cycle of out of control grief. What was lost can never be regained. What’s lost is gone forever. Lives have been derailed and they can only ever be rerailed on a completely different track. One life has ended without warning and a new normal of unanticipated and unending grief has begun.

Paris and the morning after seconds of madness. We lament the end of being human. A moment such as Paris had — many millions of fragments of the same moment in time — was birthed out of hell itself.

Oh for Paris we weep,

Our heart of hearts they mourn,

May God comfort those

Whose grief’s so deep,

And give them hope at dawn.

Compassion has no words of condemnation in an outrageously awful time. It’s a love that bears, hopes, believes and endures. For anyone affected, be it compassion that is availed to them.

***

What response to the Paris attacks is dignifying in the sight of God? It is to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly.

A part of Paris died on Friday the 13th, but God will resurrect her people and her land, and heal her hope. It’ll take some time. But inevitably many will be made stronger for what they’ve been innocently and irrevocably called to endure.

We’re so sorry for their loss.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Persisting Against Spiritual Torment, Obeying Resolutely

THIS article is for the pastor. Actually, to be frank, it’s for me. If you’re in a position like me — i.e. God calls you a pastor — meaning you have a special shepherding ministry for others — you’ll possibly recognise what such a sacrificial occupation requires of you, implicit of the nature of the role. You exist for others. Pastoring is not a job, it’s a lifestyle.

It was explained to me that when God calls a person to no other calling but to pastor, that person has a terrible calling on their life. Any other job would do. And if we could do any other job, why would we pastor? But too much these days pastors are glamour boys or superwomen — especially in our narcissistic social-media age. Truth is it’s a loaded vocation, much like the Christian faith is.

Nobody tells new converts of the spiritual warfare they willingly (yet unknowingly) enter. Life gets harder when we live a true faith, not easier. It gets less comfortable when we commit to growing, not more comfy. And for the pastor, as Dale Stephenson once said, they’re not as good as some people say they are, just as they’re not as bad as others make them out to be.

On the one hand ministry’s a blessed privilege. On the other it’s a sure curse, at least from our carnality’s perspective.

The pastor is a target — the enemy will get his clutches on us, alright! But ever more the pastor is also God’s man or woman. And they daren’t forget how intrinsic is their protection. God has promised to never leave nor forsake any of us; how much more will the Lord bless the obedience of his servant. But that very obedience may require of them their life.

The Acronym – P.A.S.T.O.R.

Persisting Against Spiritual Torment, Obeying Resolutely… the pastor is and does.

The pastor persists. Persistence is required against spiritual torment, which can be part and parcel of their daily going out and coming home. They obey resolutely. Perfection isn’t required but resolve, overall, is. Resolve is about coming back to a commitment made and keeping that commitment.

Here he goes and there she is,

The pastor is at once sublime,

But equally they fail,

Equally they’ll struggle and let you down,

But their job it is in humility to climb.

Humiliation was made for the strong,

Mortification was made for those

Who will be found to be wrong.

The Pastor is Strong, Because the Pastor Can Be Wrong

Persisting against spiritual torment, obeying resolutely; the pastor is humble enough to know they will be wrong. The pastor is an exemplar of humanity; every person is fallible enough to be wrong on a regular basis.

The pastor is ready to show everyone they encounter how to be wrong with dignity. They have no fear for exposure, because true exposure is only about the truth.

Any pastor who struggles to be wrong when they’re wrong still has a character flaw unworthy of their calling. A pastor is called to be wrong, good and well.

When a person admits they’re wrong they facilitate reconciliation in conflict because justice is served when they, a courageous person, are honest. How much better is it for a pastor — a church leader — to promptly admit wrongdoing? And in all relational encounters it takes two to tango — everyone has something they could have done better when they’re honest. They’re an example of leadership for us all, for the best leadership is a noble, trustworthy leadership.

Too many people fail a basic relational test in not being able to be responsible for their contribution of wrong. If a pastor shows they’ve mastered this key leadership competency they facilitate forgiveness, reconciliation and remove barriers to healing.

The pastor obeys resolutely, persisting against the ever-present spiritual torment that sets itself against him or her. It requires them to be dignified in being wrong.

***

Admission of contribution of wrongdoing sets spiritual captives of bitterness free.

***

Six P.A.S.T.O.R. Values

Perseverance – the resilience of persistence in adversity is perseverance.

Accountable – pastors strive to be accountable persons; self-disciplined to a fault.

Selfless – able to think of others first, pastors try to bring the fullness of Philippians 2 to bear over their entire lives.

Trustworthiness – it’s crucial a pastor can be found worthy of others’ trust.

Obedient – the juxtaposition of trust is obedience. If a pastor only trusts and obeys they’re doing the Lord’s will for their lives.

Righteous – justice and righteousness mean essentially the same thing: the unequivocal commitment to God’s truth, no matter the cost.

When a pastor fails any of these endeavours they’re quick to confess and repent. And to God be the glory!

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Why Growth Is God’s Compensation for Humbling Seasons

LIFE is the learning ground. As I like to say. Well, the fact that we don’t always enjoy such a humbling if not humiliating ride, as life is, ought to be compensated.

And that compensation is growth — over the lifespan — proving nonagenarians are also God-willed to grow. The test of growth, however, in what makes it God-willed, is it passes the dignity test. Growth ought to be a dignifying process, which is not to say that all learning protects and provides for our dignity. Perhaps the greater compensated growth is learning that occurs where our dignity is constantly humiliated, yet we’re somehow able to hold ourselves throughout so as not to be destroyed. Nonetheless, it’s no excuse for teachers to abuse their students!

That done, let me show you a process I’ve developed for reviewing a year’s progress. Ask these questions by spending a half day reflecting over them:

1.     What have I learned about positive thinking, feeling, and emotions this year?

2.     What have I learned about positive behavioural responses this year?

3.     What have I observed as requiring further thought and improvement in key areas this year?

4.     What do you have to say to the statement, “The learning’s not over yet”?

5.     How will the next period (year) be better than this one, transferring present learnings into the future?

6.     What definitive blessing have you been in others’ lives as you seek humbly to be ‘rationally preoccupied’ with others (i.e. in a moral way)?

7.     What opportunities are present in the future to make life better in your sphere of influence?

Synopsis Behind the Above Questions

It starts and ends positively, as learning and reviewal processes, I believe, should be appreciative.

Question 1 is an inside job. Question 2 asks for times when we’ve ascended God’s will; when we’ve brought heaven to earth, and God by his Spirit has shown us the blessing we can be through our obedience.

We need to ask a question (three) that evokes God’s honesty for the changes required in our lives.

Question 4 is interesting. If we answer it honestly we find it a deeper question. It’s an invitation to a response of humility — to help us embrace the fact we often have little control over life. Question 5 asks for a response of potential application (understanding, love is truth in action).

Question 6, again, asks for a known response of past that has helped and healed others and not hindered them. The important context in question 7 is ‘sphere of influence’. We can only realistically create change or act in an environment we’re realistically in.

Having made space to reflect,

Now’s the chance to dig deep,

Pray God, reveal, so I collect,

Opportunities making my learning leap.

God’s compensation for a humbling season is the learning for growth that can happen no other way.

Growth is evidence of battles fought with ourselves, where we overcame and won.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

If It Was the Last Thing You Could Ever Say

BLESSED is the one with many and varied struggles — especially if they minister.

For they have ascended the lofty heights of the abyss to minister encouragement in their brokenness as they bleed, and for the broken that is rich encouragement indeed!

Not that there isn’t a great capacity in the wounded healer to bear. They bear more than others are able to care. And such caring is beyond the reach of just anyone. The wounded healer shows all how to fall, just as they show those who may notice to stand. They know both ways. Their credibility is one of having accomplished both things — they have the strength of vulnerability in their shame, and they have life experience of overcoming in Jesus’ name.

Oh, I do struggle, and not for any other reason than I’m me. Circumstances conspire, for sure, but I’m me and I always will be.

One thing our vulnerability will do, apart from setting us free to be honest with ourselves; it will also freak others out. Nobody expects people to be really honest these days. Or do they want it? Blessed are we more in life when we discern what half-truths are safe to tell — and, who’s safe to share with. Yet we must tell ourselves the truth: the blessing of vulnerability is it sets us on a course to resilience.

If it was the last thing I could say or write it would be this. Trust. Learn to trust again. Trust again and again and again. Then we’ll find the classic truth: we’ve been vulnerable all along, and in that we’re blessed. To have lived courageously is blessed. Stressful, yet blessed. Horrifying at times, yet blessed. Too hard, very often, yet still very blessed.

If it was the last thing I could do it would be to help myself up; to imagine Jesus helping me up to go another round in life. Only when I’ve helped myself up am I in a position of helping another person who’s fallen to get back up.

The wounded healer, then, is a teacher in resilience, about the blessed strength in vulnerability, in how God actually works when we trust him.

God knows all our troubles,

Our despairs are his eternal cares,

So today give God your struggles,

And he will be your Lord who bears.

God can help in our strife,

Our burdens are those he shares,

Sharing with another brings life,

The Lord shows through them he cares.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

What Are They Saying (or Not Saying) About Me?

CONFLICTS bring us to place where our minds run into overdrive.

Some of us a feeling persons and others of us are thinkers. But feeling persons also do a lot of thinking when conflict’s afoot. And thinkers feel!

Conflict consumes much thought and feeling; probably too much.

Those of us given to analytical thinking begin to get consumed about what may be said. We always think about what might have been said rather than what might not have been said. So much so that we begin to make unconscious assumptions that build on our conscious assumptions, and sooner or later we start to make decisions about people on information we’ve made up. What a mess.

How do I know this… well that would have to be obvious; I’ve made so many dangerous assumptions that have led to fearful seeds that have grown. Then bitterness has taken root. And resentment became my fruit.

Don’t assume what you do not know,

Don’t allow fearful seeds to grow,

Or bitterness will take root,

And resentment will be your fruit.

Instead, check all your facts,

Then you’ll find you’ll relax,

You’ll defeat the enemy within,

You’ll overcome temptation to sin.

More and more, as I’ve counselled people through the very mistakes I’ve come to learn that I’ve made, I’ve learned the importance of stripping assumption from information.

Only as we strip bare the information we’re forming in our minds do we check what we’re actually thinking. Much of what we think about we’re not even conscious of. But we can easily fester and rankle into a sick thought cycle that never takes us anywhere but toward bitterness and ultimately resentment.

We could otherwise opt for truth, but that means we’ll need to become deeply accountable. We’ll set up processes to keep ourselves humble. We’ll inevitably be open to what trusted impartial others will say. And we’ll begin to stop being so certain of the purity of our own motives. That day is a day when the Lord comes close.

The more honest we are with ourselves in God’s sight the less garbage we’ll allow ourselves to believe about others.

Being accountable about what we think means we protect what we believe and we’re more prudent in what we say.

We’d be astounded if we knew how relatively rarely people actually talk about us. And those who do talk about us arbitrarily are people we should wish to have less to do with.

The more we mind our own business, the more chance God has in helping us master our own business.

The way to contentment is to deal with resentment.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

What’s God’s Will for Society’s Outcast?

REJECTED by society at seemingly every turn, what is God’s will for society’s outcast? What steps to live a reasonable life are applicable, especially for those with, say, high functioning autism?

There is such a range of comorbidity (presence of multiple disorders, syndromes, or diseases) within the range of social situations faced in any society, so it’s impossible to suggest easy ways to solve complex problems. But there is a biblical response that should always help.

Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats: ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’ (Matthew 25:45 NLT)

The ‘least of these’ are everyone society naturally places into the outcast category. The upside down reality of God’s Kingdom is that every outcast is Jesus, himself.

It reminds me of an ugly and awkward interaction I had recently. Pulling up at lights I suddenly had a scantily clad heavily tattooed young man, unlit cigarette in mouth, start washing my windshield. I was immediately moved to say “No! I didn’t ask you to do that.” And I did say that. Needless to say, he flipped me the bird! Immediately I had an ugly feeling within; not a fearful feeling, but a feeling that I needed to put this right. Soon I found myself moved by the Spirit to do a U-turn and put the situation right. I did so, but when I parked and got out of my vehicle where the young man was, I could tell what was going through his mind — “this guy’s going to ‘go’ me!” As I approached him at a distance that I had to raise my voice, I said “I just wanted to say sorry.” The tension in him immediately dropped. “I’m just out of prison and I’m just trying to make some honest dollars for my missus and kids instead of breaking into places, mate.” I said, “I know, mate, and I’m proud of you for trying to do the right thing. I’m a pastor but I’ve got my own history of trouble in the past. I just want to bless you, brother.” We shook hands and I left feeling a lot better about things, as I’m sure he did, too.

This young guy, I know, has faced much more rejection in his short life than I ever will. He’s society’s outcast, trying to play society’s rules that he probably doesn’t believe in. He’s loved only by those who have similar problems that he’s got. He’s very ill-equipped of himself to get himself out of his cycle of life. But he’s trying the best he can like the rest of us. He deserves as much love as he can get. I could’ve been uncomfortable approaching him if I hadn’t felt so convicted to make the situation right.

Making our world right is about feeling convicted in our soul to reach out — especially in the lives of those who really want and need out acceptance. Then we’ll do right things and not shrink in fear.

I don’t know what had affected this young man in his life, but it was clear from what he said that substance abuse had been an issue; aggression, too. Yet he was still so easily rejected by me. Many outcasts trust people implicitly and are hurt routinely. It is our obligation to love them especially well.

The outcast of society is an especially vulnerable person needing and deserving our love. It’s the unlovable person who most needs our love. And it’s only when we recognise there are many unlovable parts of us, yet God loves us fully, that helps us love a person we find unlovable.

***

Getting back to the original question in this article: what’s God’s will for society’s outcast?

Grow. Grow in wisdom to discern who is trustworthy and who isn’t. Trust the trustworthy. Don’t trust your vulnerabilities to just anyone. The trustworthy are those who will prove they’re caring. Find people who will love you for who you are and don’t give up until you do. Doing these things will help you grow.

Learn. Learn what you can about yourself from rejection, and particularly use rejection as a means of growing in grace. Learn to forgive, and there’s no easier way than just doing it. Make a study of humility. But most of all learn to accept who you are; who God made you (even if others don’t or can’t). And even if you never learned another thing, remember God still loves you.

Find. Find joy. Find joy in the simple things in life. Most of all, find God in every area of life.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

The Problem’s Not Pride, But Dignity

VERY often in Christian circles we feel ashamed of being caught in our pride. We’re supposed to be humble. But everyone struggles with pride. The problem I have, from a ministry perspective, is the difference between pride and dignity. Sometimes people don’t rail against others because of pride, but because they merely need to save face — it’s a question of dignity.

To dignify people ought to be our highest goal. To dignify people is to love them.

There is a difference between sinful pride and raw human dignity. Sometimes we mistake dignity for pride, especially when unfair pressure is heaped on a person. When a person is defensive we have to ask is it pride or is it their perception of a transgression of their dignity. If there’s even the slightest chance a person feels humiliated, we need to consider how we can restore them to their dignity.

***

Dignity is about a person’s God-given and God-blessed dominion.

Everyone has a dominion that God has given them responsibility over. We all have a life that God’s given us dominion over. It’s important to dignify people in the living of their life.

Dominion is something inherent to every soul. It’s not something that has anything to do with pride, though at times the lines might blur.

And where does this apply as far as others are concerned?

***

To dignify a person is a minister’s first and most important task. In their pastoral care, the minister ensures their care transcends what they say and it becomes what they do.

To dignify a person is a wife’s job, and a husband’s. It’s a father’s brief, as it is a mother’s, and a son’s and a daughter’s. There may be no better expression of love than of the plain dignifying of a person.

It’s a respect of the other person that goes beyond words and lands in the realm of silent actions — to know they’ve been considered. So many considerations of dignifying people occur without words but they’re always noticed.

Dignifying people is about owning the times we’ve disappointed them and betrayed them. It’s apologising for transgressions that have been felt.

When we’ve hurt someone there may be a pride issue, but there’s more principally a dignity issue. We cannot shove the blame onto them for their pride. We need to own our undignifying of them.

***

A person’s dignified when small deeds are done with imagination and sincerity.

Love finds its greatest expression in the silent acknowledgement that dignifies someone. Simply being considered in an extraordinarily small way is the largest way of being loved.

Small things done convey the largeness of love. Small things done overpower the love of many words.

Small things done dignify people, yet the extravagance of many words betrays love.

Those careless with love lay blame on others for feeling hurt. But those who care, care for the dignity of the other person.

Play it safe with love; think about the other person’s dignity.

Love becomes real when it becomes respect the other person defines as dignifying.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

What If We Began to Believe Our Violated Women?

“I decided to go back to him because of the children. He raped me again. He locked me in a room on Thursday and Friday. Then I managed to get away. I want to take him to court and get him kept away. I’m going to find a job and get my own home so I can get my children back. I want to stay away from my husband.”

— Grace, age 44, mother of seven children.

SHAME leads to secrecy because of the need to protect self and others, particularly the children. Domestic or family violence is the secret and silent epidemic of Australia, Papua New Guinea (where the above quote comes from), and probably every country on Earth.

What should sicken us goes unnoticed at the best and at its worst there’s the implication that the victims are at fault — where victims claims are either not taken seriously or, worse, they’re undermined, and worst, they’re not believed and even discredited. So much for the courage (not to mention the risks) for deciding to whistle blow.

There is a whole social science around what creates and sustains the authoritarian family arrangement that sees violence flourish in the home in the first place. This article is not going to delve into areas I’m only scantly qualified to mention and comment on.

But I do want to ask a question: why do we not believe our women who have decided to stop keeping the worst lie in the world, keeping them ‘complicit’ in a violent system, and tell the truth, for the betterment of community safety, child development, and the family concerned? (Sorry for the long question.)

I know too many stories of fact and anecdotes where women have been dismissed.

Why do we not believe our women? What possible motive do they have to lie or mislead? Perhaps the system is at fault where police find themselves hamstrung by a law and a society ill-equipped to deal with such problems. But why do those in helping professions not take women seriously? Why do families not take these women seriously? Are we so naïve to believe the men who seem really nice, I mean, “How could [put his name here] be a monster… no way!”

Here is the genuine family violence perpetrator’s psychology:

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“If I did, I won’t get caught.”

“If I get caught, I can talk my way out of it.”

“If I can’t talk my way out of it, the consequences will be light.”

(Lindsey, McBride & Platt, 1992)

Can we see the pathology in the thinking of men who don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, yet are ready to talk their way out of it if they are found out? He thinks he owns his wife/partner, and may be prepared to go to desperate measures to keep her controlled in his life.

Can we imagine one of these men married to our daughter, our sister, or our mother? Can we imagine what we’d feel if one of our men were involved in such behaviour?

Such men need help, but they’re least likely to desire it. Where there’s a problem — like with addiction — we must take away all their enablers.

Our women deserve support when they finally pluck up the courage to blow the whistle. And if our societal systems of law aren’t sufficiently regulated and our social systems don’t cater for alternative accommodation and support, what are we willing to do to stand in the gap for them?

There is so much shame involved for women as victims of domestic violence, but we ought to be more ashamed that we’re ignorant of the problem. We all know a woman who is a victim of this. We all know women who cannot get out of bad relationships.

The least we can do is listen to them when they come to us and believe them.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.

Quote from Human Rights Watch.