So Bobby Ologun, a famous comedic actor in Japan, has been arrested for domestic violence.
Domestic violence is totally unacceptable and I do not think we should forgive him or let it go.
1/

For years, when someone in my area was hit or otherwise abused by their husband, I got a call. It started because I am a volunteer medical interpreter, and I consider advocacy to be the most important part of my role.
2/

In early days, 15-18 years ago, I encouraged these survivors to tell the police. I helped them gather evidence, tool photos on a date marked camera and printed them out.
But after 5 times of the same thing, I stopped encouraging people
3/

The absolute first thing every cop, female or male, asks is « what did you do to make him angry? »
The interview is basically brainstorming how to not make the abuser angry.
I am not a qualified police or court interpreter so my role here is only to hold hands. But I steam.
4/

So I stopped encouraging these survivors to go to the police. If they wanted to go, I was there. But I would not encourage it. Instead I helped them leave Japan, find another place to live, or if they went back I checked on them frequently.
5/

The other thing was the hospital. Not once in the 20-25 cases of this did I hear a medical professional suggest going to the police. Sometimes they asked if the survivor had a place to stay. Very infrequently.
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There’s another big thing at the hospital. If you admit your injury was caused by someone else, insurance doesn’t pay out. Tbh this was probably my most important role.
7/

Many of these survivors don’t have a lot of money and let me tell you, a guy who is going to break 5 ribs isn’t going to give you money to pay for treatment, not without paying for it later emotionally or physically.
So I paid or found someone who would.
8/

One of the worst was when I got called to interpret for a language I didn’t know by a nurse. The survivor had a broken eye socket, at least 5 broken bones. She had said it was her husband and then they warned her she was going to face a very large bill. So she tried to leave.
9/

Obviously in this case she needed treatment. But sometimes it’s just a black eye or bruises and they don’t need *medical* treatment.
But where both a medical treatment and police visit come in handy is when you are trying to access support or get custody.
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So when you have police officers who blame survivors and an insurance system that offers financial discouragement from seeking help, you have a systemic problem for survivors of DV.
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About 5 years ago, I was called to an apartment where someone needed to be taken to be seen. But the neighbours called the cops first. The cops and I arrived at about the same time. We both saw the same thing.
Trigger warning for DV which I should have put at the top
12/

TW: graphic domestic violence

We saw the husband put the survivor’s head in the genkan (step-down entrance way) and kick her head down repeatedly - like in American History X.
I got to him before the cop did. I pulled him off and held him.
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And then I was questioned longer than he was.

The cops let me take her away and he stayed in the apartment.
The cops said they would follow up but she got into a shelter and left Japan without further contact.

14/

So hearing that Bobby Ologun was arrested for domestic violence has been a bit of a shock.
You see, I have been involved in all these cases and not once was the perp arrested. Most of the time the abuser was Japanese but sometimes he was white.
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I truly believe Bobby Ologun was arrested because he is Black.
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I am not saying he shouldn’t have been arrested, goodness knows I have wanted abusers to be arrested before.
But he is not getting the same treatment as a Japanese or even white abuser would.
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Either:
Japan’s system of focusing on stopping the survivor from provoking the abuser or removing her from the house is the way things should happen for abusers of all races
Or
Abusers of all races should be arrested like Bobby.
18/

Or
both the racism and lack of real support for DV survivors in Japan has to be overhauled quickly, which is what I believe.

19/fin