From The Roots Up: An Overview of Shelter and Advocacy Program Development Supporting Women’s Sovereignty

Battering and the other forms of violence are tactics of terror. The destruction of a person’s or Nation’s sovereign rights through acts of terrorism is the destruction of the very essence of who we are as individuals or nations. Amnesty International’s publication, “Report of Torture”, includes Biderman’s Chart of Coercion which describes techniques used to torture and brainwash prisoners of war: isolation, monopolization of perception, induced debility and exhaustion, threats, occasional indulgences, demonstrating omnipotence, degradation, and enforcing trivial demands. These are some of the same tactics batterers utilize to maintain control over their partners. They are also tactics used in the colonization of Native People.