wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Domestic violence: Churches need to hear cries for help

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World Council of Churches - News Release

Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org

>For immediate release - 03/07/2008 14:40:00

VIOLENCE WITHIN THE FAMILY: CHURCHES NEED TO KEEP THEIR EARS
OPEN TO CALLS FOR HELP

German churches' experience with the issue of "domestic
violence" will play an important role in a Peace Declaration of
the World Council of Churches planned for 2011. "The churches
have denied the existence of this issue for a long time", said
Georges Lemopoulos, deputy general secretary of the World Council
of Churches (WCC), speaking on Saturday 28 June in Frankfurt.

Frankfurt was the first stop for a WCC team of six people led by
Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi from Burundi. The visit of the WCC
team in Germany is one of several such team visits planned
throughout the world between now and 2010 to prepare for the
International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (
http://overcomingviolence.org/en/iepc )in 2011. The
convocation is the culmination of the WCC's Decade to Overcome
Violence 2001-2010, in which the German churches have been
particularly active and committed from the outset. In Frankfurt,
projects and experiences from south-western Germany were
presented to the international team.

Rev. Helene Eichrodt-Kessel, from the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Württemberg's office for the Decade to Overcome
Violence, told the WCC team that the protestant churches are
pushing to have the issue of domestic violence included as part
of the school syllabus in Baden-Württemberg and also to increase
access to advice for victims. Domestic violence is an issue taken
up both in theological training and in-service training. "In our
jobs, we go into people's homes and have the opportunity to speak
with them," she said. Congregations received calls for help from
women and children. One in four women has been a victim of
violence at least once.

The Rosenstrasse 76exhibition by the development agency Brot für
die Welt(Bread for the World) helps local congregations talk
about the issue and is used both nationally and internationally -
this year by the Evangelical Church of Westphalia. Janette
Bächtold-Ludwig, director of the National Council of Christian
Churches of Brazil (CONIC), praised the way the exhibition had
been conceived and the accompanying events that rural and urban
parishes organized around it.

"Domestic violence takes place behind closed doors. When we
learn about it, it's already too late," said Archbishop
Ntahoturi. In his home country Burundi it was seen as one of the
results of war. Through its "focus on the family" project, his
church had also found out about cases of sexual abuse, he added.

Answering a question from the delegation about the extent to
which culture and religion influence "domestic violence", the
Rev. Eli Wolf, director of the Protestant women's centre in
Frankfurt, said that at the moment most of the women seeking
protection had a migration background, although domestic violence
affected all parts of society. She also talked about working with
Muslim women who are working on changing male role models in
their environment. 

Through its international ecumenical network, the Association of
Churches and Missions in South Western Germany, (EMS), has been
getting people to read biblical peace texts together with
partners abroad. "Everything had to be translated and that
demanded a bit of patience", said the Rev. Dorothea Frank, about
the exchange with a student group from Cameroon. "We learnt that
we have the Bible as our common treasure and that no one has the
right to insist on just one way of interpreting it."

The organizers of the meeting in Frankfurt have great hopes for
the ecumenical declaration on just peace that will be issued by
the peace convocation in 2011, said the Rev. Ulrike
Schmidt-Hesse, deputy director of the EMS. She hoped that clear
positions on current challenges would be taken up alongside more
general reflections. 

The day in Frankfurt was prepared by the Evangelical Church in
Hessen and Nassau, the Evangelical Church in Baden, the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Württemberg, the Württemberg
ecumenical network and the EMS.

Further information on the Decade to Overcome Violence
http://www.overcomingviolence.org

Living Letters team visit to Germany:

http://overcomingviolence.org/en/iepc/living-letters-visits/germany.html

Travel blog by two members of the WCC's Living Letters team: 
http://overcomingviolence.org/?id=5997

Association of Protestant Churches and Mission in South Western
Germany (EMS):
http://www.ems-online.org/home_en.html

>WCC Member Churches in Germany:
>http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=4709

Additional information:Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507
6363media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings
together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches
representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110
countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic
Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from
the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.