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FOR ON LINE HELP WITH DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CONTACT
[email protected]
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STOP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
BE A SURVIVOR NOT A VICTIM;
Why Does He Treat Her So?
His touch was not a loving one,
Meant to soothe her fears.
An embrace was not a warm one,
A display for their peers.
The voice was not a kind one,
Full of scorn and jeers.
Her life was not an easy one,
Seen through eyes of tears.
With a promise to love and cherish
Throughout all her life,
Why does he treat her so,
The one he calls his wife.
Every night she prays to God,
To save her from this hell,
Of broken hearts and shattered dreams,
Her existence a hollow shell.
The face she shows to others,
Is just a shadowed veil.
The loving home she wants,
Has turned into her jail.
With a promise to love and cherish
Throughout all her life,
Why does he treat her so,
The one he calls his wife.
Randall J. Beers
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ALARMING STATISTICS...
Between 11 and 42 million women experience serious assault by an intimate
partner each year.
47% of men who beat their wives do so at least 3 times per year.
Nearly 1 in 3 adult women experience at least 1 physical assault by a partner
during adulthood.
Only about one-seventh of all domestic assaults come to the attention of the
police.
Each year, an estimated 3.3 million children witness their mothers or female
caretakers being abused.
40-60% of men who abuse women also abuse children.
Young women, between the ages of 16-24 in dating relationships experience the
highest rate of domestic violence and sexual assault.
An average of 28% of high school and college students experience dating
violence at some point.
26% of pregnant teens reported being physically abused by their boyfriends --
about half of them said the battering began or intensified after he learned
of her pregnancy.
Requests for emergency shelter by homeless families with children increased
in 68% of US cities surveyed in 1999.
57 % of homeless families identified domestic violence as a primary cause of
homelessness.
Between one- and two-thirds of welfare recipients reported having suffered
domestic violence at some point in their adult lives; between 15 - 32%
reported current domestic victimization.
Black women experience intimate partner violence at a 35% higher rate than
white women.
A battered woman who is not a legal resident, or whose immigration status
depends on her partner, is isolated by cultural dynamics which may prevent
her from leaving her
husband or seeking assistance from the legal system.
These factors contribute to the higher incidence of abuse among immigrant
women.
While same-sex battering mirrors heterosexual battering both in type and
prevalence, its victims receive fewer protections. Seven states define
domestic violence in a way that excludes same-sex victims; states have sodomy
laws that may require same-sex victims to confess to a crime in order to
prove they are in a domestic relationship.
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