Rise in lower-risk family violence cases may not be bad thing

Higher numbers point to greater awareness and willingness to report the abuse

- Theresa Tan

There is a saying that social service professionals tackling family violence are familiar with: If you don't break out of the cycle of violence, the cycle will break you.

I learnt this from Ms Lorraine Lim, deputy chief executive of the Singapore Council of Women's Organisations (SCWO), who explained that the cycle of violence describes the phases in an abusive relationship.

For example, there is the honeymoon phase after the incidence of violence when the abusive husband may shower his wife with greater affection and promise never to use force again. Thinking the worst is over, the woman goes on with life – until the man flares up again, and the cycle repeats.

Ms Lim said: “Studies have shown that if you don't break this cycle of violence, it will escalate.”

Helping victims of domestic abuse break out of the cycle of violence is a major challenge, and perhaps the biggest hurdle is getting them to report the abuse in the first place.

Like other social workers interviewed, Ms Lim said family violence cases tend to be under-reported.

The shame of being abused and the fear that reporting violence will sever the relationship or get a loved one in trouble with the law are among the reasons why victims stay silent.

At the SCWO's Star Shelter for women and children who are survivors of family violence, many women had endured the abuse for an average of between four and seven years before they sought help, she said.

A parliamentary reply in 2023 laid bare just how hard it is for an abused child, or the child's family members, to report a loved one who hurt the child to the authorities.

Of the cases that the Ministry of Social and Family Development's (MSF) Child Protective Service (CPS) investigates, abused children who directly reported the matter to the CPS form less than 0.5 per cent, while those reported by family members of the abused child make up less than 1.5 per cent of the cases probed.