Sarah Bates I waffle, therefore I am

Clare’s Law – The Right to Know

A new law is being considered in Government at the moment, one that means women have the right to ask police about whether or not their partner has a history of domestic violence. This is in memory of a woman, Clare Wood, who was murdered by a man who had previous abuse convictions whom she met through Facebook.

I have mixed feelings about this law, and my first reaction was one of worry and sadness. On one hand, I think it's important for women to be safe in a relationship and knowing about your partners past can save you. On the other hand, I completely disagree with it for the following reasons:

1. Something that most people refuse to believe is, is that abusers can actually reform. If this law passes, a woman could find out about her partners former abuse and end the relationship, regardless of whether or not he's changed his ways. Some people might turn around and say "people never change", or "they deserves everything they've got regardless of whether they has changed", but I say that's stupid logic. Of course people can change. Alcoholics and drug addicts can break their addiction. And if you really believe people should be punished based on something they used to do, well, perhaps next time you screw up and nobody forgives you for it, you'll rethink your statement and start using that magic word "Forgiveness".

2. If you are in an abusive relationship and your partner hasn't had any convictions, that could potentially be quite damaging to the self esteem of the person being abused. You could, for example, think that "it's not really abuse", downplay the situation and make excuses for your partner because of your vulnerability. This could cause a person in an abusive relationship to stay in the relationship regardless of if their safety is at risk.

3. If you're in a new relationship and you feel the need to find out about your partners past relationship abuse, stop and think about why you need to know. If you really feel you need to know, there's probably something wrong in the relationship in the first place. Either abuse has already started, in which case get help for it; or you just don't trust the person, in which case... why are you with them? If you don't trust them now, knowing whether or not they've got a conviction isn't going to magically make you start trusting.

4. Imagine if a person is being abused and asks the police about their partners past, and the abusive partner finds out? I don't want to think too much about that scenario. But it could aggravate the abuser even more, making the abused person more at risk than before. Anything that means abused people get more abuse is something I am quite against.

Other questions come to mind like, do men have the same privilege? I've avoided using pronouns like "him" and "her" in this post because I know that men can be just as abused as women in relationships. Calling this law Clare's Law puts more attention on women and alienates abused men even more. Can people be convicted of domestic abuse when no abuse has actually been taken place? Angry ex-partners, or emotionally abusive current partners can do nasty things. I'd  hate to see an innocent persons life ruined just because their crazy ex wanted to punish them.

Like the rest of the world, I'm not a big fan of domestic abuse. It's a horrible, cruel way to be treated, and in no way should women or men being abused be made to suffer any more. But this isn't a way to deal with it. Putting more questions into the abused persons mind isn't going to help them. Raising awareness, giving support and counsel to the abused and to the abusers can help so much more.

One last thing: Abusers are people too. Scared, angry and hurt people who aren't dealing with their anger in a very good way, yes, but they should still be treated with kindness, compassion and love. If someone is hurting another person the worst thing you can do is refuse them love, refuse them kindness and refuse them compassion, because the less they get of that, the worse they'll get. The more people they'll hurt. This law will only ostracise abusers more, and push them more into hurting people and away from the help they desperately need to get them out of their abusive cycle.

What do you think about Clare's Law? Let me know in the comments.