stream secular Canada are two significant factors
that have shaped the experience of Muslim com-
munity life in Canada. These two factors have been,
and will likely continue to be, major factors influ-
encing issues of domestic violence in the Muslim
community in Canada for decades to come.
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Shaheen Hussain Azmithe caucasus 115The CaucasusDomestic violence, a taboo subject in Caucasian
culture, is deeply embedded in traditions of family
privacy and autonomy. As it is a matter of private
concern, the culture does not permit the society at
large either to discuss or adjudicate violence within
the family. It differs from other forms of violence in
that it occurs in an enclosed space.
Historically, family autonomy evolved as an
institution for survival and protection. In Cauca-
sian culture the family consists of the immediate
nuclear family and a wide circle of relatives. But
acquaintances may also take part in resolving fam-
ily problems. The expression, “My family is my
business alone,” expresses the exclusion of the state
and legal institutions, and there is no legal defini-
tion of domestic violence.
The mechanisms of domestic violence rest on the
fact that in the family the males control the
resources and therefore women are subservient to
them. In the extended family the greatest conflicts
occur between pairs: wife and husband, daughter-
in-law and mother-in-law, and son-in-law and
mother-in-law. The role of violator and victim
changes according to region and ethnicity, although
the traditional perception is that it is mainly the
wife and mother-in-law who instigate conflict.
The exception is the mother who is the idealized
icon.
Young people do not see domestic violence as an
acute problem. Not particularly concerned with the
internal family dynamics of domestic violence, they
see only external causes and suggest only external
solutions: adopt laws, improve economic and living
conditions, and make violence a problem for open
discussion in the public arena. Although domestic
violence is influenced by education, inequality of
family income, social environment, and attitudes,
adults give priority to internal family relations:
mutual understanding between spouses, children,
and extended family. An absolute majority of the
victims of violence suffer the consequences of eco-
nomic power over them and the absence of protec-
tive institutions. According to research by Pkhakadze
(2002), female victims of domestic violence do not
report it for the following reasons: shame in the
face of public exposure (32 percent); fear that it will
give the family a bad reputation (10 percent); con-
viction that revelation will have no effect (29 per-
cent); and fear of divorce and losing children (6
percent). Five percent of women think that domes-
tic violence is normal and 20 percent fear being
beaten for revealing domestic violence. As long as
the attitude toward domestic violence confines it to