[KALKI]

THE COMMUNITY'S ROLE

The Muslim community has clearly failed in its obligations to protect many Muslim women and to bring many cruel Muslim men to justice. The community needs to deal much more effectively with wife abuse in order to stop the immediate suffering of people in abusive situations and to help build healthy Muslim families.

First, the community must accept the fact that there is a problem and that it doesn't know how to deal with it.

Then a core group of trusted, active Muslim men and women in each North American city, who are committed to ending wife abuse in the Muslim community and to strengthening Muslim families, must become knowledgeable about Islamic guidelines on the family and be trained in crisis intervention and counseling. Unfortunately, some community "leaders" will be too ignorant or arrogant to seek such training; but they must not be allowed to get in the way.

Since there aren't yet many Muslims qualified to teach crisis intervention and counseling, several Muslim women throughout North America have started learning these techniques from non-Muslim social service agencies (listed in the phone book under wife abuse, domestic violence, or crisis intervention). Other Muslim women and men need to follow suit. Whatever they learn from these agencies should be cast in the light of their Islamic knowledge of properly functioning Muslim families.

Once they know what they're doing, members of core groups across the continent should recruit and train others in their communities in crisis intervention and the Islamic perspective on the family. There should be a network of at least 100 trained counselors in every major North American city.

A list of trained Muslims and their phone numbers (or one Muslim hotline number) should be circulated throughout the community in each city so that abused women know whom they can turn to for meaningful help.

Most of women approaching the network initially will be physically abused Muslims. Victims of mental abuse will less likely to reach out at first because many have become accustomed to the abuse and accept it as a way of life. But educational programs at community gatherings -- explaining what Islamic family life should be like and explaining that there is help available for abused women -- will let emotionally abused Muslim women know they have a way to stop the pain.

These trained Muslims should give abused women shelter (at people's homes or at community facilities, such as a rented apartment) for periods ranging from several days to several months depending on the extent of the abuse, while counseling them.

Beyond this, taking into account the fact that many Muslim women will still turn to non-Muslim shelters because they don't want to deal with the Muslim community or because the community program is not big enough to help them, the Muslim community should sensitize people running non-Muslim shelters to the particular needs of Muslim women; and trained Muslims should visit the shelters regularly and constantly remind shelter operators that they are available to help whenever a Muslim woman comes
in.

While caring for the abused women, the trained Muslims should counsel the abusers separately, making them aware of the reasons they abuse, of the fact that their actions are truly harming their wives, that such behavior is completely un-Islamic, and that God will hold them accountable.

After separate counselling, the next step would be joint counselling for the husband and wife, and then counselling for the entire family.

The objective should be to heal the family, but divorce may be necessary.

Another option, that some Muslims in New York have tried, is to punish Muslim men for their abusive actions. A "security force" warns, and then beats up, if necessary, Muslim men who continue beating their wives. Usually the abusers get the message; this is the only language many of them understand. Some men have to be beaten before they wake up and are ready to listen to rational, Islamic arguments.

Police and psychiatrists may have to be involved in severe cases of chronic abuse.

Community education is an indispensable factor on top of all this. Starting today, throughout the process outlined above, community leaders and other concerned Muslims need to educate people -- about the problem and about efforts to help victims and prevent future abuse -- through Friday khutbahs (sermons), educational seminars, and workshops. These educational programs can themselves reduce abuse by letting people know the community isn't going to tolerate it anymore. The community isn't going to tolerate it anymore.

Furthermore, the community needs to extablish classes to teach Muslim men, young and old, how to be proper husbands and fathers and to teach Muslim women, young and old, how to be proper wives and mothers. Many Muslims don't know their rights and obligations in these roles.

In addition, in order to prevent future family problems, parents and community leaders must teach children and young adults to be compassionate, to value the family, and to resolve problems in an Islamic, non-violent manner.

It's also important for Muslims to go into fields like psychiatry, women's issues law, social work,and counselling.

No Muslim community in any North American city has taken all these steps. Unfortunately, the entire plan could take years to implement. (Of course, that makes it all the more necissary to start immediately.) But when theses steps are taken, abuse should decrease if not stop in the Muslim community, according to Muslim social workers and activists.

If, once all these steps are taken, there are more abused Muslim women in specific communities than these networks can adequately help, then Muslims should establish good quality, properly staffed, and well funded Muslim shelters. Many communities may not need to go this far, but some may.