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SINGAPORE: She is eloquent and educated, so it would be hard to imagine Rina (not her real name) as a victim of domestic violence. However, the 31-year-old said her husband had beaten her on several occasions last year.
Things are better now, but the mother of one claims that she had put up with the abuse because she did not want her marriage to break down.
According to the preliminary International Violence Against Women Survey (IVAWS) released Thursday, Rina was among a growing number of educated Malay women who had experienced domestic violence in the last 12 months.
Malay women made up 18.9 per cent of the 2,006 women polled between February and May last year.
Like Rina, 30.2 per cent of the women polled had university and postgraduate education.
Those aged between 30 and 39 who admitted to experiencing violence accounted for 47.2 per cent of the women polled.
The IVAWS asked the respondents - aged between 18 and 69 - 200 specific questions about seven types of physical violence, such as being threatened by physical hurt, as well as five other types of sexual violence.
However, the research, conducted by the Society Against Family Violence (SAFV) and funded by the law faculty of the National University of Singapore (NUS), also showed that the rate of lifetime violence was the lowest (9.2 per cent) compared to the other participating countries including Australia, Hong Kong, Italy, the Philippines and Switzerland.
Singapore also had the lowest rate of lifetime physical violence vicitimisation (6.8 per cent) and the lowest rate of sexual violence victimisation (4.2 per cent) compared to the other participating countries.
But SAFV's Benny Bong said these results might represent only "the tip of the iceberg".
He said not many women come forward for fear of losing face, while some don't see themselves as victims.
More alarmingly, although 42.4 per cent of the women polled felt their lives were in danger during domestic conflicts with their partners, they were less likely to regard the incidents as a crime or report them to the authorities, he said.
Another 71.7 per cent of those women abused by their partners were also not likely to report such incidents to the police, said Mr Bong.
"Many of these women cannot accept they are living with a criminal," he said, explaining why many choose not to report the abuse to the authorities.
Social workers said it will be some time before women here change their attitudes towards such violence.
"It is not a simple process ... what is important is to educate the community to support such victims," said Miss Kerry Wilcock of the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware).
"Perhaps more training could be given to social workers to identify and deal with women in these problem areas," offered Ms Decksha Vasundhra, a social worker at Safe @ Trans Centre.
The full report will be released later this year.
- TODAY/sc
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