December 2019

THE FIFTH SOCRATES CAFE IN MOSTAR: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN


''Violence against women'' was the topic of the Fifth Socrates cafe held in Mostar on December 12, 2019. Andreja Pehar facilitated the Cafe. She has Master of Educational Sciences in Pedagogy and Gestalt Psychotherapy. At first, she read Sanela Kuko's poem "Love or On a Culture of Violence." The poem focuses on marriage violence experienced by women. She has justification for that and finds it easier to stay in such a marriage, because there is nowhere to go back, everyone will make fun of her children and she will not be able even to see them. Because of feelings of helplessness, people justify violence, feel ashamed and want to preserve marriage at any cost.

Participants questioned why a woman was persuaded that this is love, because of the fact that one, who loves, does not do such things, and who once commits violence, will do it again. They find it tragic that people think the violence will cease and that they do not have the courage to confront and get out of the vicious cycle of violence. The cause of this is patriarchal nurture and the fact that we are systematically learning to suffer violence. Violence is not an individual's private matter, so unless we report it, there is no difference between the abuser and us.