Each year women are the victims of more than 4.5 million violent crimes.
Women of all cultures, races, occupations, income levels and ages are battered by, husbands, boyfriends, lovers and partners. Domestic violence is the most common but least reported crime in the United States. Every five years domestic violences kills as many women as the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War.
The Bureau of Justice statistic reports that a women is beaten every 15 seconds. So in the time it takes for you to hear this background music play out completely, thirteen acts of domestic violence were committed. Injuries that battered women receive, are for the most part, just as serious as injuries suffered in 90% of violent felony crimes. Yet under state laws, they are almost always classified as misdemeanors.
Battering is not only a momentary loss of temper, but rather the establishment of control and fear in a relationship. Violence, intimidation, threats, phychological abuse, and isolation, are all used to coerce and control the other person. Yet fifty percent of battered women still involved with their perpetrators experience self-blame for causing the violence.
It isn't always easy for the battered woman to leave their abuser. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that women who leave their batterers are at a seventy-five percent greater risk of being killed by the batterer than those who stay. Also approximately seventy-five percent of visits to the emergency rooms by battered women, as well as seventy-five percent of intervention calls to law enforcement for assistance in domestic violence occur after separation.
If you are a victim of domestic violence, please seek help, and if you are not a victim, you know who these women are. They could be your mother, sister, daughter, neighbor or friend.
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