I was motivated to do my community project on domestic violence because of the environment I grew up. My both parents work, especially my mother kept working even after she gave births to my sister and myself. My parents have flexible idea about gender role. Therefore, living in this circumstance, I have become more aware of women's rights, their status, and what issues they are facing. Since domestic violence is one of social issues women face for their rights, I wanted to know about it in detail. Another reason for choosing this issue is that domestic violence started becoming a bigger issue because more people have become aware of women's rights in Japan. I was also interested in how people deal with domestic violence differently in U.S. and Japan, so I decided to compare this issue in two countries.
Statement of Need
What I discovered through research and interviews is on the nature of domestic violence in Japan and U.S. Comparing this issue between America and Japan, I found that its nature and individual cases are similar in both countries. There are some differences which make domestic violence such a major issue in Japan. First, people's awareness toward this issue was very low until now. As the women's movement has been more recognized in the society, the need to solve their personal or family issues has increased. Next, in our traditional and cultural beliefs, we should deal with a problem within a family, it is often an obstacle for preventing domestic violence. Especially, it is common for older generations to feel shame and dishonor to their family if they talk about a personal problem outside of the family. The last difference is that social services, community support and network, and social policy are not fully developed in Japan yet, compared to the American society. This results from the Japanese people's low awareness toward the domestic violence issue.
Description of the Intervention
I learned through my research and interviews that education to increase people's awareness toward domestic violence is the most effective prevention, although it is very time-consuming. Such media as newspaper and TV and education at school age should play important roles to encourage people to know about this issue. I planned that I should increase the Japanese people's awareness through some Web sites which talk about domestic violence. It seemed as a good opportunity for me to introduce some American programs and how they are solved, because many people share their personal issues anonymously on those Web sites.
However, practicing the intervention through the Japanese Web sites was so time consuming, since it took over two decades even in America to people fully recognize this issue. I decided to increase people's awareness toward domestic violence in the community of Chico. My action of intervention were the following: offering a workshop about domestic violence; distributing brochure about community resources, Catalyst; adding cultural diversity in the project, for example, providing brochure in Spanish.
As an intern of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program at Butte County Housing Authority, I had to coordinate and facilitate the workshop every month. I decided to offer the workshop about domestic violence in the middle of March. There was a guest speaker from Catalyst and she presented the nature of domestic violence and how we could cope with relationship issues. Some of the clients have experienced domestic violence in their real life, and they shared their experiences during the workshop. The information given by the guest speaker was very useful, and the clients were able to create a support group to share each other's experiences and thoughts. The workshop was a good method to enhance people's awareness toward domestic violence.
I have also tried to distribute a brochure of Catalyst at the front of the Housing Authority's office. This is to increase awareness toward this issue among the clients of the Housing Authority, who are people with low income. I hope that people who come to our office can know from the brochure about what kind of resources that are available for domestic violence in this community. Since I come from a different culture, I wanted to add cultural diversity in to my project. At Housing Authority, Spanish and Hmong people are the second biggest population we serve following Caucasian. Therefore, providing brochure in Spanish and Hmong as well as in English was my goal. It was very easy for me to obtain Spanish brochure, but not in Hmong. Catalyst did create a brochure about teen violence in Hmong. However, they have to wait for funding to get it printed. I faced the organization's reality. Even though they want to meet people's needs as much as possible, funding can be obstacle for their services. I hope Hmong brochure will be ready soon.
Evaluation of the Intervention
At this point, I can only say that the workshop about domestic violence was successful. Especially, when the clients started sharing about what experiences they had or what they thought about the issue, I was able to see they were making a very supportive and caring atmosphere. This supportiveness should be the most important for the battered women to feel comfortable to talk about their problems. The level of the achievement for the plan of brochure is too soon to tell. It will take time to see if the clients at Housing Authority obtain information about the resources. Besides, I found that offering the workshop about domestic violence issue was much more effective than just offering information by brochure. The people could share their ideas and experiences at the workshop and ask a professional their questions. I think that providing brochure is one-way contact. We put every information in brochure and provide it to people, but it is very unlikely to get feedback from them. If Japanese people try to increase their awareness about this issue, I recommend having lots of opportunities to offer an educational workshop. As I saw in the workshop in March, the Japanese women should be also able to support and make a network with each other by sharing their experiences.
Reflections on the Project
This community project was very interesting for me to work on. By comparing the American service to the Japanese one, it made me realize more clearly about what problems and needs the Japanese society and people really face in this issue. It has taken about two decades that American people have better understanding about domestic violence and start preventing it. Japanese current situation is just at the beginning of solution compared to America.
On April 6 in 2001, a bill to prevent domestic violence just passed the Diet (same as the Congress in US) in Japan. This bill will take effect from the end of October this year. It was very exciting news for me, because domestic violence is socially recognized as a crime in Japan. It also means that the law and system to protect women from domestic violence was finally established. Now, we really have to start developing better networks among agencies such as police, court, and social service agencies. Each professional, including a social worker, should be more educated to collaborate and serve people better.
In the future, I really hope that domestic violence will disappear from our society. We are responsible for educating children and next generations about this matter. If we can teach them to respect others, they should know that violence is not a right way to deal with a problem or anger.
I am glad that I could learn more about domestic violence through my project. The differences I found that it could be obstacles for prevention between Japan and U.S. were availability of the resources and public's awareness toward this issue. It took about two decades to achieve to this point in America, so it will take the same or more time to develop better services and networks in Japan. The following are similarities: how the battered women feel about what they experienced and why they hesitate to ask help. These are related to feelings of shame, isolation, and fear. Having a workshop or support group is helpful for the people suffer from domestic violence, because it can give them an opportunity to increase their self-esteem and give comfortableness to talk about the issue to one another.
There are lots of good examples that I would like to make use and adopt in the Japanese society when I go back there and work as a social worker. I have also been able to learn how each agency cooperates and collaborates to meet people's needs better and how agencies and a community should support each other through my internship at Housing Authority.
References
Asahi Newspaper. (April 6, 2001). [in Japanese] Articles about Domestic Violence Prevention Bill
Interview a volunteer coordinator on October 19, 2000, an executive director on October 31, 2000, Shawna Kelley (program assistant) on March 9, 2001 from Catalyst
Japanese Web site about domestic violence. (March, 2000). [Online]
Available: http://yancha.vis.ne.jp/onna/bouryoku/frame_bouryoku.html
Kakuchi, S. (September 8, 2000). Rights-Japan: New laws demanded against domestic violence. Interpress Service.
Task Force II. (in Japanese) (November, 1999). [Online] Available: http://www.neaccess.net/~rhouse/contents.html
^top