This article appeared in the Oct.1995 edition of Grand Rapids area's Metropolitan Woman. RAVE of West Michigan was later folded into Family Futures, a great local nonprofit assisting young families.
Every month 50,000 U.S. women seek restraining or protection orders against someone who has violated or been violent to them.
Almost four million are beaten by their partners every year; approximately 1,500 are killed.
Victims are not limited to females; about 10% are male. Witnesses—usually children—are driven to suicide attempts and substance abuse in dismal numbers. There are too few shelters for those seeking refuge from domestic violence.
Sexual assault, too, touches us all in some way because it happens to one in three women. Yet this "crime of silence" is hushed up because of the sense of shame perpetuated by society against the victims who usually feel they must somehow be to blame.
And the medical and hospital costs, the homelessness, the interruption of normal daily routine, the depression and loss of self-esteem and the cycle of abuse handed onto subsequent victims—often children—are all enormous.
In 1991 more than 7,000 assaults in Grand Rapids were identified by the police as domestic violence. And reports of domestic violence, including those involving homicide, are increasing in the area. Reported situations are but a fraction of the domestic violence cases that occur.
Increased sexual and domestic violence cases have an impact on the criminal justice system, with the cost of prosecution growing higher with the rising caseload. This problem imposes strains on the medical care system too. Employer costs rise as well when workers lose work time because of their medical conditions.
That's why we need to get the message out that domestic violence is a crime, and as citizens, we will not tolerate it in our community.
Grand Rapids agencies address the issue of violence against women with treatment and counseling, crisis intervention, support groups and counseling for children. Related treatment programs are in place for alcohol/ substance abuse and abuse/ psychological treatment. However, there is still more work to be done.
Prevention
No problem can be tackled without first recognizing it as a serious and pervasive problem. Effective education, therefore, is one of the keys to preventing sexual and physical violence. Education breaks through the individual and societal silence and denial which have contributed to society's tolerance of violence against its most vulnerable members--women, children and the elderly.
Effective education increases access to community resources, treatment and intervention. It decreases the level of public acceptance of this crime. And it increases the degree of understanding and awareness among adolescents, according to Marie Fortune, founder/ director of the Seattle Center for Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence.
Educating youth about the personal and social impact of violence against women and about ways to stop the violence will give them the tools to break the cycle of family violence in vast numbers of dysfunctional families who receive a huge amount of our society's resources. Those families who now load our child welfare system, our juvenile courts, and ultimately, our adult correctional system with numerous cases might ultimately join the mainstream of productive families if violence against women can be diminished or stopped.
Community Involvement
A safe community is a healthier community, one that encourages people to live up to their potential. The individual sectors of the community, however, cannot solve complex problems alone. And violence against women is a complex problem.
Therefore business and spiritual leaders, legislative and government leaders, foundation and community leaders, members of the educational community and the media must get involved and work together on prevention and awareness, as well as victim assistance and perpetrator treatment.
Only by facing this problem bravely and head on will we be able to combat the apathy, ignorance, embarrassment and misdirected blame which now exist.
To raise public awareness about violence to women which permeates society and cuts across all economic, ethnic, age and geographic groups, R.A.V.E. of West Michigan, the YWCA Domestic Crisis Center, the Kent County Domestic Violence Coordinating Committee and other organizations have planned a month-long series of events this month in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
For more information, call the YWCA at 459-4642 or R.A.V.E. at 940-1144.