CPMH (Center for Public Mental Health) in UGM Psychology held a public lecture and webinar on Wednesday, May 10, 2017 in the faculty’s auditorium, G-100. CPMH worked with Australian Technology Network of Universities and Centre for Islamic Thought & Education in bringing along Dr. Nada Ibrahim and Dr. Budi Andayani as speakers.
The key speaker, Dr. Nada Ibrahim from University of South Australia presented two materials, “Ya Aabati! Growing in Domestic and Family Violence Homes” and “Thank you for asking! Evidence based domestic and family violence strategies in the Australian Muslim community”. While presenting the first material, Nada unraveled that children exposed to violence in their childhood could justify hitting their spouses later on in their lives. The research involving 271 participants mentioned the need for prevention and shared responsibility to protect the younger generation from violence attitudes/beliefs in their homes, schools, neighborhood, and playgrounds.
Then on the presentation of her second material, Nada explained why there are only few studies that discuss domestic and family violence centered on Muslims as the subjects. It’s because policies and programs aren’t designed to fulfill the needs of the Muslim minority in Australia. This makes victims of violence in the Australian Muslim community often experience setbacks in accessing services catered towards protection against violence. In her research, Nada developed prevention, intervention, and recovery for this issue through three projects: MATE as a pilot program, MLEP as training, and inspiredNAFSi Leadership Program as a manual facilitator that can be used on youth, schools, men, women, and even grandparents that are involved in parenting.
Dr. Budi Andayani delivered the next material, titled “Domestic Sexual Abuse in Indonesian Family”. To open her lecture, Andayani showed a few cases on domestic sexual abuse that happened in Indonesian families. Cases like that are seldom reported because families view that as something shameful that should be kept secret. They are worried about the fate of their marriage if other people found out, and financial difficulties also play a role in families not coming forward. On the other hand, the victims that experience sexual abuse will either stay away from sex because they view it as a traumatic experience, or be very interested in sex and become a perpetrator someday in the future. Andayani stressed that families need to do early detection; some of it includes paying attention to changes in the victim’s behavior and physicality. Prevention of sexual abuse and violence can be done with early sexual education in order for children to protect themselves and not consume pornographic material. [Alifah].