Delivering women-friendly justice | Bangkok Post: feature

Her former husband slashed her throat with a razor-sharp blade he used for electrical wiring at work, inflicting a seven-and-a-half-centimetre-long cut mid-neck and nearly severing her windpipe in his fit of jealousy. Her face still bears scars from previous attacks _ a slightly twisted nose broken less than a year earlier when he punched her to the ground. Still, Pim said she felt guilty if he were sent to jail and asked the police to drop all charges against her then husband. She only wanted to live separately from him, to be safe from harm, but still share custody of their two children. Yet the combination of an attempted murder and a string of drug-related charges meant his acts were non-compoundable offences, and Pim had to testify as a state witness at the Thon Buri Criminal Court.

Pim earns a daily wage of 200 something baht. She's unaware of how to claim rights and receive support that she is entitled to under the Domestic Violence Victim Protection Act (DV Act BE 2550), which came into force in late 2007. To her, the day she came to testify with her two children in tow meant facing the man who assaulted her repeatedly at the Court of Justice. A small consolation would only be that the children would get to hug their father as asked for during the time he was in pre-trial detention.

Pim arrived with her two children, escorted by court clerks and was led to the witness area across from Bench No. 20, specially fitted so that aggrieved women don't have to directly face their perpetrators who are often their intimate partners, at the Thon Buri Criminal Court.