NCJ Number
185715
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 6 Issue: 11 Dated: November 2000 Pages: 1223-1254
Date Published
November 2000
Length
32 pages
Annotation
Ethnographic research conducted in Israel focused on the intersections between domestic assault and divorce, gathered information from interviews of 49 battered women who found being divorced difficult or dangerous, and examined battered women’s accounts of their experiences of the pluralistic and segregated family law system.
Abstract
The interviews took place in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1999 and included interviews with paid staff and volunteers of domestic violence service organizations, women’s rights and human rights activists, psychologists, social workers, community religious leaders, attorneys, court personnel, and parliament members. The battered women were from varied religions. The majority of the women had never entered a shelter or contacted the police. Results revealed that men can use a variety of local tactics, including the legal denial of divorce, institutionalized or forced reconciliation, extortion and blackmail, and control of sexuality and reproduction. A final legal strategy is the use of divorce as a threat against battered women. Findings indicated that the divorce process may be understood as part of or an extension of men’s battering in Israel and that this conclusion applies both to Palestinian and Jewish women in Israel. Notes and 61 references (Author abstract modified)