The police, the court system, health care and even the education system may betray those abused women who, when seeking help, turn to institutions that were meant to offer protection - this was the main subject of the discussion on Monday night, broadcasted on Facebook , organized by Patent Association (Society Against Patriarchy) and NANE Women’s Rights Association as part of the campaign called 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence.
As an attorney at Patent - established in 2006 - Júlia Spronz has been helping abused women for 15 years, and through the stories of her clients, she constantly witnesses institutional betrayal: the way the organizations and institutions that the abused turn to for protection, let them down.
“They get traumatized for a second time as well; except it is not the perpetrator but a whole government system that continues the abuse against the abused” - stated the lawyer, adding: in these cases, the system that the victim trusts and expects justice from, instead of standing by her side, becomes an accomplice to the perpetrator.
„People who say domestic violence is the conflict of two people just don’t see the essence of it. ”
According to Júlia Spronz, who helps in a thousand cases annually, the system plays right into the intellectual abusers’ hands.
This kind of betrayal is especially hurtful, because a lot of women try to bolster their courage for a long time just to seek help from authorities. That’s when they realize that they have ended up in a situation worse than the one they were in before asking for help - this is how Júlia Spronz summed up what abused women can expect in all likelihood, if they wish to get institutional help.
They seem to care about neither the victim, nor the case
As to what extent it is not the victim the institutional system helps, the example of Erika Renner is the best illustration; she is just joining the conversation. She said what she expected of the justice system was not taking her side in the first place, but understanding her case. “They leave me alone and I don’t feel they care about my case either”, - Renner said, who had been fighting nearly eight years in the lawsuit against her physician attacker for pouring alkali on her body.
In her case the identity of the offender was evident, he was arrested within the first 24 hours, the evidence was there and so were the witnesses, still the prosecutor’s office terminated the investigation against him and also failed to order the commencement of an investigation against an unknown perpetrator.
As is known, she was attacked in her home in 2013 by her ex-boyfriend, who was the director of a hospital in Buda (Budai Irgalmasrendi Kórház) at the time. Krisztián Bene drugged his victim, then poured caustic alkali on her genitalia and the genital area. Five years after the attack, the court sentenced Bene to 11 years imprisonment in 2018, but the legal procedure had still not come to an end. In 2017 Erika Renner filed an action for damages against her attacker, but the civil law procedure was set aside until the final decision in the criminal case was reached, so in effect the trial only began in December 2018.
Only this summer has it become final that Bene would serve his 11-year prison sentence (seven and a half if he maintained good behavior). Just recently the Budapest Metropolitan Court pronounced its judgment according to which the attacker is obligated to pay 25 million Forints as punitive damages to Erika Renner.
According to Renner, her case was prolonged so much because she could not specifically identify who attacked her, since the assailant wore a mask and numbed her with drugs. Although she could not prove it, she knew for sure that it was her former boyfriend who had assaulted her.
“They expected me to prove the abuse, the violence”, - said Renner, who felt throughout the whole procedure, that she had been left alone, she had been doubted, and she had not been taken seriously.
There was no abuse as there is no black-eye
“Victims often face this attitude, since many of them don’t arrive in court all black-and-blue or bloody, they might not even have any visible physical injuries. They don’t cry, they don’t look bad, but it doesn’t mean they are not traumatized”, - Júlia Spronz pointed out; she also emphasized that abused women are commonly believed to have been assaulted only if they have a black-eye, they cry, look bad and sad. It is still not public knowledge that even an abused woman can post a smiling photo on Facebook, she can walk hand in hand with her abuser, and still be abused.
“The reason that I don’t constantly weep is because I’ve been seeing a psychologist for eight years, I’ve been having operations, but it doesn’t mean that that certain thing has never happened”, - said Erika Renner, who also pointed out in one of the last medical examinations: she has learned to live with all that had happened but has not been able to mentally process it. Her situation was especially hard, since the horrible injury caused by the caustic alkali spilled on her genitalia was only visible under her clothes, and there were occasions when it was even remarked in court how well she looked and that she was in a relationship too.
Erika Renner also experienced institutional betrayal in the health care system, when right after the attack she had been given intensive care, but as soon as it turned out to be a criminal case, doctors became reluctant to continue. This despite the fact that, in a subsequent criminal procedure, it would be indispensable to have accurately documented all the injuries of an abused woman on the first occasion of medical care. There is no protocol in hospitals on how to tend to the case of an abused woman, except for treating her injuries. It may be evident that a crime had been committed, but to no avail; doctors fail to report these cases because they don’t want to get involved and go to court hearings, - summed up both Erika Renner and Júlia Spronz.
Another issue also came up in the discussion broadcasted on Facebook. Institutional betrayal is not only present in the police, the prosecutor’s office, courts and healthcare, it also occurs when the child of an abused woman is involved. Just like most police officers, judges or healthcare workers are not prepared for such issues, in the majority of the cases teachers are also unable to recognize and/or handle the different types of abuse which are not only suffered by mothers but their children too.
Most teachers do not even have the basic knowledge about whether the non-custodial parent may have access to the e-grade book. If the father is an abuser, many teachers are prone to say that the parents are just quarreling, they are having communication issues and that neither of them are really looking after the child, though all the while the abused mother is trying to fight for her child.
Erika Renner noted that although the operation of the institutional system is generally not helping the victims, she has discovered slight positive changes in the last eight years. For example, during the retrial of the appellate court, when she was confronted with her assailant, it was considerately arranged that the man would not sit behind her, but rather to her side, this way she could hear but not see him. This arrangement of the courtroom helped Erika very much, as did the fact that she did not have to answer her attacker, only the judge.
The ninety-minute discussion can be seen here.
Translated by Dóra Horváth
