“Because men are held to have natural and uncontrollable sexual appetites women are to blame if their husband is unfaithful. She must satisfy him, and if he looks for sex outside marriage it is because the wife has failed in her duty to satisfy him.” Ramona Boodoosingh, PHD on Violence Against Women in Samoa, Inquiry document 82 More than 70% of female respondents in the SFSS 2017 believed a woman should never refuse her husband sex and 30-36% of men believed a wife should have sex even if she did not want to. The sexual entitlement of men has become so entrenched in Samoan society that it has been internalized by women as well as men. It leads to situations such as the one described with horror to the Inquiry by Dr. Malama Tafunai who cared for a pregnant 13 year old girl who had been raped by her father on the instructions of her mother, who felt unable to perform her matrimonial duties. Instances such as this reflect harmful notions concerning sexual entitlement of men in patriarchal society which encourages sexual violence. 7.2.7 Internalisation of causes The Inquiry consultations revealed a vast majority of people view family violence as a priority issue which must be addressed yet other statistics show that violence is accepted and widely viewed as justified. Often women view violence as more justifiable than men, despite far more often being subjected to violence rather than perpetrating it themselves. Why is this? Inquiry Info Point 13: How and why victims and groups internalise justifications of violence. Internalisation of the justifications of violence can happen at both an individual and societal level. At the individual level, if a woman is in an abusive relationship it is in her self-interest to understand the reasons behind her partner’s abusive behaviour to such a level they are able to predict when it may happen and try to take evasive action (this is not always possible because violence often arises independently of the actions of the victim). Once they have reached this level of understanding, they embed it into their way of thinking to give them the best chance of survival. Over time it becomes second nature until eventually they tell themselves that they agree with the reasoning and they forget they ever thought differently. The internalization process is complete. Consider a hypothetical victim, who has internalised the justifications for violence, gives birth to a little girl. She raises that little girl to deal with everything the world has to throw at her and passes on her new found beliefs about why violence can be justified. As this process happens in homes across Samoa, the internalization of the justifications for violence across the whole of society is complete.