TAIPEI (UCAN) -- As a woman quietly cooks supper at home, her husband flies into a rage, goes behind her and twice stabs her neck before their son's eyes.

The woman struggles for life in a hospital intensive care ward for 10 days.

Her husband, freed after three years in jail, then forces the woman to live with him again and he often beats her. The abuse ends only when he is dead.

This saga from real life in 1994 served as the basis of Kids of Angel, a play the Taipei-based Good Shepherd Social Welfare Services recently staged to raise awareness about the trauma of domestic violence.

The play was performed on Nov. 30 at National Taiwan University Hospital, and again on Dec. 4 and 6 at two other locations, all in Taipei.

The Good Shepherd Sisters staged the performances to mark 20 years since their arrival in Taiwan to establish social-welfare services for women and children. They also wanted to mark a decade since the formulation of Taiwan's Domestic Violence Prevention Law, which deals with the violence often lurking behind closed doors in homes.

Good Shepherd Sister Therese Thong Jing-lian, executive director of the welfare service, told UCA News the drama reflects the experience of Kui-lien (a real woman but not her real name), whom the government referred to the sisters' organization 13 years ago after her husband seriously injured her.

Sister Thong pointed out that the woman's agony occurred at a time when Taiwan had no laws to protect women and children from domestic violence.

In the play, Kui-lien tells her son that if she were to "use abuse as reason to file for divorce," she would have to "provide evidence of four injuries suffered within a month."

Her son replies: "Do you know I go to bed every night fearing my father may kill you? Sometimes, I'm afraid I'll come home and find you covered in blood."

Kui-lien's case, according to Sister Thong, was a catalyst for change. It prompted the Good Shepherd Sisters to study domestic violence in Taiwan and the laws other countries had enacted against it.

The welfare service, which now runs 29 shelters and centers in Taiwan for abused, raped and abandoned women and children, then ran a public forum to raise awareness of the rights of people in such situations, the nun added.

In 1997, Taiwan legislators began drafting a bill that a year later became the Domestic Violence Prevention Law. Among other provisions, it mandates that courses on preventing domestic violence be conducted in schools and protects the rights of the abused. In March 2007, an amendment on implementing correctional schemes for domestic violence perpetrators was also passed.

Alicia Su Jia-hui, the welfare center's publicity director, explained to UCA News that the law is helping to change Chinese beliefs that "laws do not enter a family" and "a good judge finds it hard to arbitrate family affairs."

Huang Hsin-hsien, a lawyer, told UCA News that while more people now know how to use the law to protect themselves, "some still choose, wrongly, to tolerate such situations," supposedly for the sake of their children.

Huang, a former judge, also noted that children trapped in such situations could become domestic violence perpetrators when they grow up. He stressed, "Domestic violence is not a family affair but a crime," and said the public should help prevent such violence and victims should bravely seek help.

"The script moved me deeply," Chen Chih-Cheng, the play's producer, told UCA News. "I hope the drama shows our women friends how to protect their basic human rights and be free from fear."

In discussions after each performance, physicians, lawyers, social workers and police shared their experiences of helping victims of domestic violence and advised abused women to walk out of such situations with their children.

According to Sister Thong, Kui-lien is now 53. Her 32-year-old son died this year and she still faces many hardships, the nun said, but she is coping with her challenges and helps the welfare service as a volunteer whenever she can.

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