Countryfile and Rural Domestic Violence

Oh dear,,where are your minds sometimes.Abuse of any kind is never a triviality,but there's always a time and a place,especially for serious issues.

I don't really understand your post Markark.

Are you saying serious issues shouldn't be featured on Countryfile?

Should rape, child abuse, terrorism ?

Those decisions are left to the producers, Anniebach.

If a terrorist attack affected a rural area you bet your life it would be featured. As are floods which also claim lives

If you remove all serious issues from Countryfile you might as well stick it on the CBBC channel.

Yes I know merlot, but I asked if you thought they should be on Countryfile

I'm saying some issues are so serious,they should have their own program, light hearted shows should be left alone.

Issues like BSE, Foot and Mouth, Bovine TB, rural violent crime, floods, the high suicide rate in farming etc., etc., have ALL had programmes of their own as well as being featured on Countryfile.

Why should Domestic Abuse be treated differently or are you saying it's more serious than people losing their lives or livelihoods?

Difficult question, but I think living possibly for years in fear of being hit, beaten up,
Bruises, broken bones, and always the fear of being beaten to death is worse than losing ones livelihood. Suicide is tragic and the depth of despair terrible, but living in constant fear is I think is hell on earth.

Yes, I think it could be more serious and deserves a programme of its own.
Rural violent crime is a serious issue too, as is the suicide rate in farming. Perhaps a separate programme would be appropriate.

The other issues are part of farming life.

To my mind it is a bit like showing daily life in, say, the steelworks or other industries, eg aviation, and then start to include domestic violence in the programme.

Although, of course, Countryfile has strayed quite a way from its beginnings concentrating on farming and concentrates on leisure pursuits in the countryside.

It must be 17 0r 18 years ago that I and a Women's Aid colleague wrote and presented a paper on Domestic Violence/Abuse in rural areas at a big conference at Aberdeen University. We were asked because we worked for a WA Group which served a city, various small towns and villages and a large rural hinterland, so were well able to identify the additional problems faced by women living in the countryside. The purpose of the conference was to identify problems and difficulties in service delivery experienced by various agencies and helping organisations working in rural areas and to share examples of good practice.

Our paper delineated Key Issues and went on to explain how we had tried to overcome them. 1st step on the path to ongoing DV/A is ISOLATION. The 'victim' has to be distanced from family & friends so that they can no longer have their support. It is much easier to ensure and maintain isolation in a rural setting when the abuser can simply take the car keys, phones etc. away when they go out, there are no regular buses, popping out for coffee with a friend is not an option and visitors at home are not welcomed. There are no neighbours to hear a disturbance and a call for help to the Police or even for a taxi will not result in a prompt response. A big worry is that there are many legally held guns in the countryside, which coupled with a high incidence of heavy drinking is a very dangerous mix (also a factor in the higher rate of rural suicides). Women cannot simply pop into a WA or CAB office discreetly in their lunch hour and popping into the only solicitors office or Doctor's in the nearest small town for advice is NOT an option if they are, as is likely, the family's Doctor/Solicitor. already. Then there are the animals - you cannot take your pony/dog/cat or livestock with you if you flee to a refuge, relative, B&B but an abuser will almost certainly threaten to harm them should you leave. It might be possible to obtain an Interdict or Injunction excluding the abuser from the family home but NOT FROM THEIR PLACE OF WORK - eg Farm, Kennels, Shooting Estate. There are legal problems too if it is a tied cottage. However, if you choose to leave, unless you have plenty money of your own, you would be giving up your whole way of life in exchange for safety in a council flat.

I would argue that DV/A (and alcoholism, drug abuse, etc.) in rural areas requires different approaches and solutions from the same problems in large towns and cities and is therefore a perfectly proper subject for discussion in a programme about rural affairs.

There are legal problems too if it is a tied cottage. However, if you choose to leave, unless you have plenty money of your own, you would be giving up your whole way of life in exchange for safety in a council flat.

Thank you for your post, Granny23 I belong to a generation of women living and working on farms who would have had nowhere to go should the need arise (unless you had family nearby willing to help) Thankfully nothing like that happened to me but I witnessed some really distressing situations.

The tied house is included in the husband's salary. There are often other perks that add up such as free fuel/telephone/vehicle. The wife is therefore as tied to the job as the husband. Even in the days of cheaper mortgages it was nigh on impossible to find enough money to buy your own home unless the main breadwinner was in a well paid management position.

Things are improving now and it's easier for an abused woman to escape a violent relationship but it hasn't always been so.

Much of what you list applies to both country and town. A woman in a city cannot take her pet to a refuge and I doubt women want to take farm animal stock with them . If she leaves the marital home she too has to adjust to different housing.

We read often of neighbours hearing a disturbance but choose not to get involved

Guns are not usually used in domestic violence, beating hell out of a woman can be repeated over and over for years, possibly for life. . I don't know one woman on a farm who doesn't drive and I live in a very large rural area . CAB is not open nights and women visit towns several times a week.

If an injunction is taken out I doubt the abusers would have employers willing to support them.

So I disagree , there is little difference between country and town, the one difference is in a town a woman can run into the street, more frightening trying to flee down a farm track.

I fail to see how alcoholism should be treated differently in country or town

If an injunction is taken out I doubt the abusers would have employers willing to support them.

Got it in one, Anniebach and that is why women STAY in an abusive relationship.

The husband loses his job so you lose the roof over your head. The children are settled in school......where do you go, who supports you?

Thank you Granny23 for your post which sheds a lot of light on the issue.
While it may be that a whole TV programme is warranted to deal with the problem (or scratch the surface) I still firmly believe that a programme about rural affairs/life is an appropriate vehicle for a feature about people who work in the countryside to help the victims of such abuse.

Merlot, women stay in abusive relationships in towns for the same reasons , some even stay because they don't want to give up their status .

This is not about is life harder for an abused women in country than town, it's about should it be on Countryfile and was the woman who wrote to Points of View wrong, I do not think it should have been on, you compared abuse with stolen machinery at the start , who gets a tractor stolen in Birmingham? So I disagree with you on this

And rape of wives only became illegal in 1993 , so things have changed and moved on.

One thing about living in a farm community is the fact there is a large number of friends to turn to.

I don't follow your argument anniebach. Where I lived in Scotland there WAS NO "farm community" with a "large number of friends to turn to." A shepherd's cottage could be 5 miles away from the next nearest house, the farm house could similarly be out in the wilds, and although there might be 2or 3 cottages around the steading (cow man etc) there would not necessarily be a family in each so on the whole life was very solitary. A young or not so young woman might not see anybody except her husband or children for some days at a time.
You say you do not know any women who don't drive. A controlling partner will check mileage, can keep the car keys (like Rob) and a farm worker would not run to 2 cars, his and hers!
I think Granny 23 has pointed out exactly why domestic abuse in rural areas is different from that in cities (I don't mean the violence of course) but the situation an abused partner finds herself in.

It is true domestic violence can occur anywhere but it impacts in a particular way in the countryside in that people often have less access to transport or local support services. Not all women (or men) drive - I don't.

Residents of more urban areas might view living in the country as some sort of idyllic existence, but it has its own challenges and I think it's OK for a programme about country life to feature these aspects too.

This discussion reminds me of a weekend workshop I went on where one of the discussions was about violence and sexual harassment. One lady said that her granddaughter had been subjected to a sexually explicit request from a taxi driver. Another lady said indignantly that she was sorry, this wasn't the sort of thing had come to talk about, and anyway she lived in Surrey and "we don't get that sort of thing there"!

Alea, I can only speak of what I know and of where I live and I am speaking of now not the past. Seems rural life in Wales is different to England and Scotland, the farming community is as close as the mining community use to be.

Eloethan, not once have I said we do not have that sort of thing here , even a pea brain knows domestic abuse happens in both town and country, among wealthy and poor, educated and poorly educated.

Seems it is considered no more serious than stealing a tractor or a pitchfork or loss crops so should be discussed with the same concern. Let's not forget closing mobile libraries,

So child abuse should be on Countryfile too?

I do not think that a couple of other posters and I are trivialising or under-estimating the seriousness of rural domestic violence and I take the point of isolation being a factor, so I am surprised that that is how some posters have interpreted what I, for one, am trying to say.

What I am saying is that this issue is far too serious to be dealt with in a programme like Countryfile. Wrong time, wrong programme.

For me, too serious a subject to be placed with stolen tractors , loss of crops , closed post offices and lack of public transport so should not have been discussed in Countryfile

I think the Countryfile producers were right to sieze the moment. I get sick of the hackneyed phrase 'raising awareness' but thanks to The Archers storyline which made the front pages of most newspapers, beleaguered women might just pluck up the courage to seek help.

Of course it's a serious subject and I think Countryfile handled it very sensitively.

Anyway, my 'hiding to nothing' instinct has kicked in. I've made my point so will leave it now.

Then we will agree to disagree

Merlot I agree. I was sorely tempted last night to contradict (with evidence)some of the points raised but decided that 'there are none so blind as cannot see' and further discussion would not change their point of view. I am pleased that most posters do 'get it' and will leave it at that.