Yvonne Ba­boolal

"It is not my en­e­mies who taunt me, I could bear that. It is not my ad­ver­saries who deal in­so­lent­ly with me, I could hide from them. But it is you, my equal, my com­pan­ion, my fa­mil­iar friend with whom I kept pleas­ant com­pa­ny..." School­teacher Sheila Stu­art quot­ed this test from Psalm 55 to de­scribe the hor­ror of be­ing abused by some­one close to you.Stu­art was speak­ing at a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sem­i­nar yes­ter­day at the Tu­na­puna Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre host­ed by the group Women on the Edge of the Tu­na­puna Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil.

The sem­i­nar took place while the po­lice and me­dia were in re­mote Matu­ra, on the east coast, to in­ves­ti­gate a mur­der/sui­cide in­volv­ing Bar­ry Kara­math and his two young chil­dren.Stu­art said the Psalmist's words vivid­ly de­scribe his per­son­al dis­may at be­ing per­se­cut­ed by some­one he once trust­ed. "These words of be­tray­al and hurt are al­so a sad but re­al­is­tic por­tray­al of the feel­ings of those who suf­fer from do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. Such is the de­cep­tive na­ture of abuse."

Speak­ing on the spir­i­tu­al di­men­sion of do­mes­tic abuse which, in many cas­es, end in mur­der, Stu­art said it is im­por­tant women un­der­stand how much they are val­ued."It is im­por­tant they un­der­stand they are cre­at­ed in the im­age and like­ness of God. God wants us to val­ue our­selves the way He val­ues us."When we re­alise whose we are and how pre­cious we are to God, we will not sub­ject our­selves to any kind of abuse."

Stu­art, in­volved in so­cial work, al­so quot­ed from the book De­sire of Ages by Ellen G White, who said, "The Lord is dis­ap­point­ed when His peo­ple place a low es­ti­mate up­on them­selves."She said the Bible de­scribes God as one who hates vi­o­lence and warned there will be pun­ish­ment to those who of­fends lit­tle chil­dren.

De­scrib­ing how fam­i­lies are sup­posed to be, she told par­tic­i­pants, "God has po­si­tioned us in fam­i­lies so that we can grow in grace, de­vel­op Christ-like char­ac­ter­is­tics and build healthy, whole­some re­la­tion­ships."Hus­bands and wives should avoid every­thing that cre­ates con­tention and un­nec­es­sary con­flict in or­der to pre­serve har­mo­ny and peace in the home."God de­sires that hus­bands love their wives in the same ten­der, self-sac­ri­fic­ing way that Christ loves the church, not sub­ject them to bul­ly­ing and bru­tal­i­ty.

"There is no room for tyran­ni­cal con­trol and abuse of pow­er and au­thor­i­ty. Both are to sub­mit to each oth­er."We must ac­cept males and fe­males as equals and ac­knowl­edge that every per­son has a right to re­spect and dig­ni­ty. "Fail­ure to re­late to oth­ers in this way vi­o­lates their per­son­hood and de­val­ues hu­man be­ings who were cre­at­ed and re­deemed by God."

Oth­er pre­sen­ters at the sem­i­nar in­clud­ed for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Dr Em­manuel Ho­sein, who helped draft the do­mes­tic vi­o­lence act, and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the po­lice's Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit.