Noel 'Nutsy' Campbell uses a piece of cane to show where his common-law wife Jasmine hit him. - Photo by Paul Williams

The much-publicised fight between Rihanna and Chris Brown has thrown the issue of spousal/domestic abuse back into the media spotlight, again. The discussions heightened when recent rumours of reconciliation between the two started to swirl. Some people became angry with Rihanna for getting back into Brown's life, asking if she was for real.

There is now an online public service announcement with an enactment of the fight. The narrator uses words from "actual detective notes", and those words are not as pretty as Rihanna, before Brown allegedly pounded her face.

The current discussions, for the most part, look at abuse from the perspective of the woman as the 'victim'.

And rightly so, since the 'victim' in this particular case is a woman. Yet, men too are battered.

The statistics are hard to come by, especially here in Jamaica, but many men the world over are beaten by their spouses, and the situation requires as much attention as that given to battered women.

For abuse, in any form, should be forbidden.

Central to the discourse is the question: Why do battered men and women stay with their abusive spouses?

For the women, many reasons/excuses, including emotional attachment, love, financial dependence, for the children's sake, nowhere to go, fear of reprisals and not wanting anybody to know, are given.

These have been rejected wholesale by people who find the practice of spousal beating totally unacceptable.

Punching bag

What rationale, then, can a man give for being a punching bag?

If he proffered any of the preceding reasons/excuses, he is going to be called a wimp.

Why he allows himself to be battered is mindboggling, and why he suffers in silence is a no-brainer; shame and embarrassment. And in the Jamaican context it is even worse.

In a country where the only thing that many men possess is an inflated ego, which man is going to go to the rum bar, corner-shop piazza, barber shop, taxi-stand and proudly say he's a battered man? What then is he to do?

Not only will he be at the receiving end of mockery and disrespect, and be reduced to the level of a castrated rooster, he might just get some more battering.

Yet, Desmond, from Reach, Portland, takes his beating from his woman as one big joke, and has no qualms about telling people over drinks about the many incidents that have caused him great embarrassment.

In dramatic fashion, he will even show interested onlookers where the woman once gripped him with her mighty hand. But Desmond is not the typical battered man who is traumatised by his spouse's abusive behaviour.

A way out

He's a nice rural soul who will one day be released from the clutches of his warlike woman.

Those, unlike Desmond, who are burdened by their predicament, do not have to live in the shame, and they can get out only if they find the courage and the will as a man should. One person who shook off his embarrassment and got help is Noel 'Nutsy' Campbell, from St Mary.

On February 25, last year, we told how in full view of his St Andrew's Papine Market customers and other shoppers, his woman dealt him some serious blows with a piece of cane. Overwhelmed by embarrassment, he retreated inside the market where he sat down and cried as a baby.

"Mi tan up and tek lick ... but mi did feel quite shame yuh know, soh mi left go inna di market go siddung and start to cry ... nuh must man ... She cut mi up dung a yard shortly before that, and push mi dung, and box, box mi up," he told The Gleaner.

The story continued: "She had beaten him several times before that particular incident and even after. At one point, he had to get a bodyguard to protect him. What was even more bizarre was that Miss Jasmine wrote all the bad things she had done to him in Nutsy's own diary. Those jottings would later prove to be very useful to Nutsy.

Strange common-law relationship

"For the 14 years they were together in a very strange common-law relationship, she moved out on him 13 times. She was away for as long as four years at one stage. Miss Jasmine had left to get married. When that marriage crashed upon jagged rocks, she was back in Nutsy's arms and heart. He took her back willingly. And the drama recommenced. Yet, it was he who had to get her to leave the 14th and final time. But how? Nutsy, the abused man, took her to court last June (2007).

"Fed up with the frequent fighting and beatings, and having to sleep outside of their residence, in his van, Nutsy decided to seek the assistance of the law. He applied for a protection order and an occupation order in the Port Maria Resident Magistrate's Court.

"At the hearing, the judge remarked that in all her judicial experience she had never seen a man bring a woman before the court for abuse. She strongly reprimanded Miss Jasmine before making her ruling.

"Under Section 7 of the Domestic Violence Act 1995, 'The court makes an occupation order or interim occupation order against the respondent (Miss Jasmine). The effect of the order is that the applicant (Nutsy) is entitled to the exclusion of the respondent, personally to occupy the household residence'." Miss Jasmine was not allowed to live in Nutsy's home.

"Under Section 4 of the said act, 'The court makes a protection order or interim protection order, forbidding the respondent from entering or remaining in the (applicant's) residence'."

The order, among other clauses, forbids Miss Jasmine from entering Nutsy's place of work or education, and from molesting the (applicant) by using abusive language to or behaving towards (the applicant) in any manner which is of such nature and degree as to cause annoyance to or result in ill-treatment of the (applicant).

In addition to the courts, there are counselling services, offered by Fathers' Crisis Centre and other organisations.

Lanny Davidson, founder of the crisis centre, said in a June 17, 2007 Gleaner article, 'Help for fathers': "They can get in touch with the crisis centre because everything that we talk about is absolutely private ... I would never discuss (it) ... I don't even remember the details anyway, half the time."

www.batteredmen.com is also worthy of exploration.

paul.williams@gleanerjm.com