VietNamNet Bridge – Lax application of the law by local police and authorities have blunted efforts to reduce and prevent domestic violence in the city, officials said at a workshop earlier this week.

Although the laws against domestic violence were put in place three years ago and a decree on punishing violators issued early this year, those legal documents had been applied very sparingly, they said.

Le Thi Thanh Nha, an official with the Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism, said local authorities and police, especially chairmen of People's Committees, did not consider domestic violence their responsibility.

They still thought that it was a matter for the local women's association to deal with, she said. Some of them even thought that domestic violence was merely a quarrel between the wife and husband – a personal problem they did not need to interfere in, Nha added.

It was only when the violence had serious impacts that they fined the offender. And this fine was often levied for violating public order regulations, not the laws on domestic violence. Therefore, they did not report accurately the number of people punished in their localities for violating these laws, she added.

Also, the number of residents unaware of the laws and the decree was still high, Nha said.

Trinh Thi Ly of the Centre for Gender and Family Studies in Ha Noi cited a horrifying example of the ignorance displayed by local authorities.

Ly said Ha Noi residents were waiting to see what a local Appeals Court would do to Nguyen Gia Long who, as alleged by his mother-in-law, deliberately ran his motorbike into his wife Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha this April, killing her.

Ha's mother filed a complaint in which she said her daughter had been regularly beaten by Long since 2004, when he began having an affair with another woman.

However, Ha did not report this to the local police, resigning herself to the physical abuse. In April, unable to bear the violence any longer, she left her house and went back to stay with her mother, Do Thi Nhi.

Enraged, Long rushed to Nhi's house to demand that Ha return to him. On seeing his wife standing next to her mother, he drove his motorbike directly into her, injuring her fatally.

After receiving Nhi's petition, police in her locality investigated the case. Finally, instead of charging him with murder or manslaughter, they decided to charge Long in court for violating traffic laws.

Long was accordingly fined by the court, but Nhi's lawyer launched an appeal against this decision.

Ly said this was an action that demonstrated ignorance on part of both the police and the local People's Committee.

Nguyen Thi Xuan Hong of the Culture and Family Office in District 12 said she was sad that she did not know how to help a woman in her locality who is regularly beaten by her husband.

When Hong approached the police for help, they said they could not do much because the husband produced a paper saying he was suffering some mental problem.

Thus, the only thing the police did was to fine the husband for violating regulations on social order.

Hong asserted that the police were not doing their best to help the women, adding that they (the police) had also not understood the laws and decree on family violence.

She hoped that the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism and relevant authorities would take steps to make the local police and authorities consider domestic violence their responsibility and increase the penalty for violating relevant laws.

Nha said that the department had invited local polices and authorities to attend training courses in order to improve their awareness on the laws and decree dealing with domestic violence.

However, very few officials attended these courses, she added.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News