A sleepless night: domestic abuse

I barely slept last night. I think the barrage of sights and smells and noises in this city has over-stimulated my mind. I drifted in and out of a light sleep until morning prayers at 4am. These prayers begin with “god is good, god is good….” And then something like “It’s better to be praying than asleep.” At that very moment, I would have preferred sleep. Just as the prayers fell silent, a woman began screaming and pleading and crying in one of the apartments either below or opposite me. I opened my shutters to try to see her, but she herself was behind closed shutters – in the “privacy” of her own home. This is why so many feminists and domestic violence activists have resisted the idea of a “right to privacy.” There is concern that it is a right that will be used to block interventions into the home when women and children are abused. But this is not what we are working on at EIPR. Instead, the right to privacy is seen as a vital individual right that includes the right to health care, housing, and food. It encompasses the freedom to enjoy a balanced emotional life and to choose a religion without state interference.
How anyone defines this right was, of course, no help to the woman who continued to cry for over an hour. Her screams were all the more upsetting because of the quiet morning darkness. I just hope that some of my legal work can ultimately contribute to bringing greater protection to vulnerable individuals, and to shifting the often grossly-distorted power balances that exist between human beings.