Domestic violence: “Women want it to stop at last”

FOCUS: Ms. Clemm, your office is in Berlin-Kreuzberg, where many migrants and socially disadvantaged live. What do your experiences say: is there a connection between the area where you live and the number of domestic violence cases?

Christina Clemm: There’s no connection at all. I represent women of all origins, all income brackets, all age groups, some live in their own homes, some in a three-room apartment with five people, others in a shared flat. Gender-based violence just happens everywhere.

Why is it that the societal narrative that domestic violence tends to affect vulnerable women prevails?

Clemm: It is more acceptable to deal with such stories when they remain that of others. Publicly and politically, femicide, massive violence or even sexualized violence are more likely to be taken up and condemned when it comes to migrants.

Are we not looking closely enough as a society?

Clemm: You know, every year on November 25th, the day against violence against women, the current case numbers are published. Then everyone is shocked. Really, every third woman should be affected? If we thought about it seriously, it would be obvious: this is massive violence that is happening in my immediate vicinity.

It also affects the neighbor and the colleague

Clemm: But this realization has so far been successfully pushed away from the center. It should be the others who cause or have any difficulties. Poor, migrant people or stars from the media industry, with whom you don’t share your life. But no: it’s also the neighbor, the colleague, the woman on the board and at the cash register.

The victim protection association Weißer Ring assumes that eighty percent of cases of domestic violence are unreported. Many of those affected remain silent or do not report the crimes. Why is that?

Clemm: Unfortunately, there are many good reasons for this: First of all, the danger posed by the perpetrator if they separate, the danger that he will use even more massive violence after the separation if she reports or only talks about it. Another aspect is the shame, the shame of having been beaten. If a woman has been hit once and promptly broke up, she may have her social circle on her side.

But if she doesn’t do that and stays with the perpetrator, she’s always asked why she didn’t leave him sooner. That’s like another slap in the face. The tenor is: Can a woman who lets herself be beaten assert herself at all, be successful in her job? Can she take responsibility?

Why do so few victims take legal action against perpetrators?

Clemm: It is well known that such court proceedings are extremely stressful, that they are protracted, often last for years and then often do not end in the interests of the injured party. It is high time that these procedures became more patient-friendly, faster, less traumatizing and that more effective penalties were imposed.

It doesn’t do any woman any good if she reports her husband because he broke her arm, and three years later he gets a fine for it.

More often psychological than physical violence against men

There is also violence against men, statistics assume that about 20 percent of the cases.

Clemm: Yes, that’s a problem too. In my opinion, the silence about this has to do with patriarchal structures: men are not allowed to be victims. It is estimated that there is much more psychological violence against men than physical violence and it is less serious than against women.

In addition, women are often more economically dependent on the perpetrators and it is easier and less dangerous for men to break away from violent women.

For our campaign, many women stand up and show their names and faces as victims of violence. Does something like that help?

Clemm: I hope so. The main message is yes: Violence can literally hit any woman. I hope that this visibility will lead to social debates. The crazy thing is that everyone actually knows about it. Every third day in this country a woman is killed by her partner. Every third woman experiences violence in her life.

But that doesn’t do anything; one rather has the feeling that society is becoming dull. On the other hand, visibility helps. These women say: We exist! We are not ashamed of it and we want to talk about it.

“It must become normal to interfere”

Shouldn’t talking about it also mean talking about the perpetrators?

Clemm: I would really like campaigns that focus on the perpetrators. Why are they hitting and not being effectively stopped? What are the structures that make this daily violence possible? Which gender images prevail? And why isn’t every non-hitting man concerned that this finally stops? It’s not enough to just not hit yourself. Getting involved has to become normal.

Speaking of getting involved. When it gets noisy next door, many close the window, often to avoid conflicts with that neighbor. In her experience: How do you help properly?

Clemm: Ring the bell, of course, call the police if it gets loud. And even if you’re worried that you’ve raised a false alarm, if it’s embarrassing because the woman says everything is fine, then that’s the way it is. Then you say “so much the better if everything is okay”, apologize and leave. It’s much worse when you hear screams and don’t do anything when the neighbor next door is being killed.

And how does it continue?

Clemm: Then next time you will try to find the woman alone and say, “I really don’t want to offend you if you’re just arguing loudly. But I’m there. I’ll give you my cell phone number.” Helping also includes having open sensors, speaking to friends about the topic, and telling them about their own experiences. Everyone knows someone else or is affected themselves.

When those affected turn to you as a lawyer – what do these people want to achieve, what do they expect?

Clemm: Most of those affected come because they have already filed a criminal complaint, because they were seriously injured, reported others, they went to a women’s shelter and are afraid of further attacks. Or they come to me because they have family law disputes, contact or custody disputes.

What most women want most is for it to stop. Many hope for an out-of-court settlement, many for the acknowledgment of their suffering, for assumption of blame. It is surprisingly rare for those affected to seek the highest possible punishment. Unconditional prison sentences are only imposed in exceptional cases anyway.

What does such a prison sentence do?

Clemm: I personally don’t think much of our prison system. Many women don’t want imprisonment either, because then the fathers of their children will go to prison, which they don’t want to put their children through. Some also because they no longer receive maintenance if the perpetrators lose their jobs due to a high conviction.

Even then, the economic dependency continues. The only thing that can be an advantage is that the women can rest, so they are safe for a while. But eventually the perpetrators come out, and if they weren’t dealt with well in detention, they come back angrier.

There is the presumption of innocence, a very important good. You have been speaking out for a victim assumption for a long time. What do you mean by that?

Clemm: The presumption of innocence means that someone is not considered guilty until they have been convicted. That is of course correct. The presumption of victim I propose works in a similar way: as long as it has not been legally established that an injured person has made false statements or made false reports, they must be treated as if they had become a victim.

Critical questions are allowed, don’t insult

Clemm: So you have to treat her with the necessary respect, as if she had actually experienced these acts. That doesn’t mean that you can’t ask critical questions or that you have to believe everything immediately. But what often happens in court these days is that those affected are insulted, laughed at, accused of lying in an attempt to intimidate, unsettle or confuse them so that they find it difficult to testify well.

This often leaves them re-traumatized, with some reporting feeling just as helpless in court as they did during the crime. In my opinion, there is no harm in finding the truth if the injured are questioned in an atmosphere that is free of fear and does not burden the victims.

You have been working in this field for over 20 years now. What has changed for the better?

Clemm: A lot has happened socially. There is a different attention, steps towards a sensitivity to gender-based violence. There are more counseling centers, there are more places in women’s shelters, although by far not enough.

Important things have changed in criminal law, for example there is the institute for psychosocial court assistance, replacing video interrogations in the preliminary investigations or changes in substantive criminal law. But the case law has not changed in the long term and often still uses misogynist narratives and myths. The number of cases is not going down either. That makes you angry.

Gender-based violence is actually a male issue

what has to happen

Clemm: I would like to see a debate about what kind of society do we actually want to live in? How can we make life good for everyone? We need a lot more money, a different prioritization of combating gender-based violence.

It is not enough to distribute a few million from the pot of the Ministry of Family Affairs, which always has too few resources. Gender-based violence is an issue of internal security, at least for every third woman. It’s actually not a women’s issue, first and foremost it’s that of men, of men who strike. For that we need attention.

What could that look like?

Clemm: In Spain, for example, every femicide is reported in the main news. In Germany that would mean that every third day at prime time there would be reports that another woman had been murdered by her ex-partner. As far as I’m concerned, everyone should be annoyed by the topic. The main thing is that you don’t look away anymore and that something is finally changing.