In Thailand you are 'allowed' to beat your wife
What happens to politicians in other countries when it becomes known that they beat their wives? Here you need not expect an outpouring of public moral anger to force the man to resign. Nor should you expect a stream of sympathy for the woman who dares to break the silence.
In her Wednesday column, columnist Sanitsuda Ekachai discusses the mistreatment of actress Janie Tienpohsuwan by her husband Chonsawat Asahawame, millionaire and chairman of the Provincial Council of Samut Prakan (see News from Thailand of Wednesday).
Janie's position is no different from the position of 44 percent of women in Thailand who are abused, according to a survey in 2005. Domestic violence is a private matter, you don't air the dirty laundry, the woman will do it have made to it and do not let them go to court, because they will persuade her to settle the matter amicably.
The law is failing, Sanitsuda concludes. If a woman kills her husband during an argument, she will be charged with murder. It doesn't count that she was abused for a long time. A university lecturer who killed his wife with a golf club got off with a few hours of social services. The court considered it one crime passionate.
If this practice of impunity continues, home a dangerous place for women, Sanitsuda fears.
(Source: Bangkok Post, July 30, 2014)