By Anastasia Kyrychuk
Victim blaming is a very big issue of our society. Blaming someone instead of understanding and helping unfortunately is a common thing. In the Ukrainian stage of Media Dialogue 2020 there was another important topic to talk about. Vladyslav Kononov was talking about growing domestic violence during pandemic of Covid-19.
Quarantine made everyone locked in their homes. For toxic households this can mean that their home becomes like a torture cage. While people are unable to escape the issues during work or school end up increasing cruel damaging of mental health and domestic violence. But the most terrifying thing meanwhile violence is inability to share the problem and to get help. People are often afraid of telling that they were abused physically or mentally because of the anxiety being blamed and misunderstood. In many cases somehow people find reasons to protect the abuser and justify violence instead of defending the victim. “It`s her fault”, “He deserves it”, “They need to be taught” – though this does not approve brutal actions towards someone. But for some people it still does.
Mr. Kononov talked about the domestic violence, how Covid-19 contributed to increase such cases and he mentioned its effects. He also shared his own story about his life as a child from an abusive and toxic household. He reflected the possible reasons connected with the historical developing of Ukraine and first steps of dealing with the problem.
Step by step Ukraine tries to change its direction from damaged tendencies of communication in the families. Activists organize educational projects, the topics of blaming, bulling and shaming are discussed by many influential people. And Ukraine is also discussing about the ratification the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.
Being a human is still the hardest thing to deal with it during the lifetime. Everyday progress in technology sometimes is more ahead than the evolution of humanity’s behavior. People are used to forget that the beginning of development starts from the inside. Many people look up on the possibility of checking up the Mars or living on the Moon but still cannot teach themselves how to act properly. We live in the world with artificial intelligence and cruel violence at the same time.
