More than a decade after its passing, Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (PDVA) remains a remedy of last resort for female survivors of intimate partner violence, as there is little support to take on a rights-defined identity as a battered woman both inside and outside the courtroom. However, large numbers of women are accessing the Maintenance Act of 1999 to exit violent relationships without the censure and stigma that attaches to the PDVA. The key to understanding this phenomenon is to consider how familial ideology works in unpredictable ways within the Sri Lankan judicial system. This article examines the reach and different impacts of familial ideology within the judiciary and argues that female survivors of violence navigate this ideology to their own advantage. However, the preference to address violence through the Maintenance Act renders such violence invisible. The price for judicial redress is silence.
BasuS. (2015). The trouble with marriage: Feminists confront law and violence in India. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
2.
Centre for Women’s Research. (2011). Domestic violence: Myth, truth and response. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Author.
3.
de AlwisM. (1995). Gender politics and the respectable lady. In JeganathanP.IsmailQ. (Eds.), Unmaking the nation: The politics of identity and history in modern Sri Lanka (pp. 138-156). Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Centre for Ethnic Studies.
4.
DeraniyagalaS. (1992). Domestic violence. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Women in Need.
5.
FentonZ. (1999). Mirrored silence: Reflections on judicial complicity in private violence. Oregon Law Review, 78, 995-1060.
6.
FinleyL. (1989). Breaking women’s silence in law: The dilemma of the gendered nature of legal reasoning. Notre Dame Law Review, 64, 886-908.
7.
GoldfarbS. F. (2008). Reconceiving civil protection orders for domestic violence: Can law help end the abuse without ending the relationship?Cardozo Law Review, 29, 1487-1551.
8.
GoodmarkL. (2012). A troubled marriage: Domestic violence and the legal system. New York: New York University Press.
9.
GoonesekereS. (2006). Family support and maintenance: Emerging issues in some developing countries with mixed jurisdictions. Family Court Review, 44, 361-375.
10.
HunterR. (2006). Narratives of domestic violence. Sydney Law Review, 28, 733-776.
11.
HunterR. (2008). Domestic violence law reform and women’s experience in court. New York: Cambria Press.
12.
JayasuriyaV.WijewardenaK.AxemoP. (2011). Intimate partner violence against women in the capital province of Sri Lanka: Prevalence, risk factors, and help seeking. Violence Against Women, 17, 1088-1102.
13.
JayaweeraS.DiasM.SanmugamT.NagahawatteK. (2011). Domestic violence: Myth, truth and response. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Centre for Women’s Research.
14.
KapurR.CossmanB. (1996). Subversive sites: Feminist engagements with law in India. New Delhi, India: Sage.
15.
KellyK. A. (2003). Domestic violence and the politics of privacy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
16.
KoC. N. (2002). Civil restraining orders for domestic violence: The unresolved question of “efficacy”. Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, 11, 361-390.
17.
KodikaraC. (with PiyadasaT.). (2012a). An exploratory mapping of domestic violence intervention services in Sri Lanka 2009–2011 (Rev. ed.). Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Centre for Ethnic Studies.
18.
KodikaraC. (2012b, May). Only until the rice is cooked? The Domestic Violence Act, familial ideology and cultural narratives in Sri Lanka (Working Paper No. 1). Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Centre for Ethnic Studies.
19.
KodikaraC. (2014, December). Balancing acts: Counselling for intimate partner violence against women in the two districts of Anuradhapura and Batticalao (Working Paper No. 6). Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Centre for Ethnic Studies.
20.
Lazarus-BlackM. (2007). Everyday harm: Domestic violence, court rites, and cultures of reconciliation. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
21.
LewisR.DobaashR. P.DobashR. E.CavanaghK. (2000). Protection, prevention, rehabilitation or justice? Women’s use of the law to challenge domestic violence. International Review of Victimology. 7, 179-205.
22.
LewisR.DobashR. E.DobashR. P.CavanaghK. (2001). Law’s progressive potential: The value of engagement with the law for domestic violence. Social Legal Studies, 10, 105-130.
23.
LoganT. K.ShannonL.WalkerR. (2005). Protective orders in rural and urban areas: A multiple perspective study. Violence Against Women, 11, 876-911.
24.
MarecekJ. (2000). Am I a woman in these matters? Notes on Sinhala nationalism and gender in Sri Lanka. In MayerT. (Ed.), Gender ironies of nationalism: Sexing the nation (pp. 139-159). London, England: Routledge.
25.
MerryS. (2006). Human rights and gender violence: Translating international law into local justice. London, England: University of Chicago Press.
26.
MoonesingheL. N.RajapakseL. C.SamarasingheG. (2004). Development of a screening instrument to detect physical abuse and its use in a cohort of pregnant women in Sri Lanka. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health, 16, 138-144.
27.
MurphyJ. C. (2003). Engaging with the state: The growing reliance on lawyers and judges to protect battered women. Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law, 11, 499-522.
28.
Prevention of Domestic Violence Act No. 34 of 2005.
29.
RajanR. S. (2004). Rethinking law and violence: The domestic violence (prevention) bill in India, 2002. Gender & History, 16, 769-793.
30.
RigakosG. S. (1995). Constructing the symbolic complainant: Police subculture and nonenforcement of protection orders for battered women. Violence and Victims, 10, 227-247.
SchneiderE. M. (1994). The violence of privacy. In FinemanM. A.MykitiukR. (Eds.), The public nature of private violence (pp. 36-53). New York: Routledge.
34.
SchneiderE. M. (2000). Battered women and feminist law making. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
35.
WaulM. (2000). Civil protection orders: An opportunity for intervention with domestic violence victims. Georgetown Public Policy Review, 6, 51-155.
36.
WijayatilakeD. (2009). Cases filed under the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act, No. 34 of 2005: An analysis. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Women in Need.
