Attorney General Eric Holder on Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Excerpts from remarks by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  Full text
. . . . Last year, there were over a half million non-fatal violent victimizations committed against women age 12 or older by an intimate partner. And more than 2,000 women and men were killed by intimate partners last year. [...]

No One is a Stereotype: How Survivors Inspire Each Other

http://www.ndvh.org/2009/10/no-one-is-a-stereotype-how-survivors-inspire-each-other/
National Domestic Violence Hotline has a post by Leslie Morgan Stiener, author of the book Crazy Love, a memoir about domestic abuse.
For a long time after I left Conor, I struggled with how I fit our society’s stereotype of an abused woman. Exactly why and how had I lost myself to a man who I was [...]

Immigrant Survivors of Abuse

http://www.womensenews.org/story/domestic-violence/091009/immigrant-survivors-abuse-seek-freedom
Women’s eNews has a two-part series called Immigrant Survivors of Abuse: Seeking Freedom.
Clenching her fist, she said she was scared of being deported and was petrified of her abuser. She found herself locked in a labyrinth of helplessness.
 

A reprieve for California shelters

October 21, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — In a reversal, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a stopgap bill on Wednesday to restore financing to the California’s shelters for victims of domestic violence.
Mr. Schwarzenegger eliminated money for the shelters in late July with a line-item veto as the state struggled to close the remainder of a $24 billion budget [...]

Baghdad’s Underground Shelters Help Iraqi Women Escape Violence and Abuse

by Anna Badkhen, from Ms.
Source and full story: Utne Reader
On a bullet-scarred side street in Baghdad’s downtown, where U.S. Marines famously helped tear down the statue of Saddam Hussein in April of 2003, an inconspicuous entryway tucked between a steel-shuttered shop and a rickety candy stall leads to a flight of steep concrete stairs. Rusted [...]

New study finds partner abuse leads to wide range of health problems

Source
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Women abused by intimate partners suffer higher rates of a wide variety of doctor-diagnosed medical maladies compared to women who were never abused, according to a new study of more than 3,000 women.
Many of these health problems are not commonly understood as being associated with violence, such as abdominal pain, chest [...]

Voices of Our Sisters in Spirit

The Sisters In Spirit initiative is a multi-year research, education and policy initiative funded by Status of Women Canada. The initiative is designed to address the disturbing numbers of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada. Through the Sisters In Spirit initiative, the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) aims to better understand [...]

Updates from Pretty Bird Woman House

Pretty Bird Woman House reviews some of their recent history and talks about the impact of the Office on Violence Against Women and the services provided by this program at Standing Rock Reservation.
Pretty Bird Woman House Blog

Urban vs. rural domestic violence

Urban vs. rural domestic violence
by Andrew Clevenger

As our friends at The Rural Blog have pointed out, a new study out of the University of Kentucky highlights how domestic violence protective orders are less effective in rural areas than in urban centers.
The study, by UK professor TK Logan, concludes that while domestic violence occurs at similar [...]

Economic Stress and Domestic Violence

Applied Research Forum In Brief: Economic Stress and Domestic Violence (September 2009)
Access the full report in .pdf or html format
www.vawnet.org
National Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women
 In Brief: Economic Stress and Domestic Violence
The severe economic recession that began in December 2007 has renewed interest in the relationship between economic stress and domestic violence (DV). Although [...]

When leaving is lethal

Source: St. Louis Beacon
When leaving is lethal: Recent murders show separation can be dangerous when partner is abusive
By Nancy Larson, Special to the Beacon
Sun. Sept. 27 – By piling her four children into the family van as usual on Friday morning, Sept. 18, 27-year-old Melissa Amerson of St. Louis made a deadly [...]

Women warriors take on domestic violence and sexual assault

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/59339272.html
By Tanya Lee, Today correspondent
Sep 18, 2009
From North Dakota to Arizona, strong, talented, accomplished Native American women are taking up the challenge of protecting themselves and their sisters, their mothers and aunts, their grandmothers and granddaughters, from the devastation of domestic violence and sexual assault.
The level of violence against women and children in the U.S. [...]

Recovery Funds Help Native American Women Victims of Violence

Recovery funds offer promising start on justice issues
By Leeanne Root

Source: Indian Country Today
 September 4, 2009
Some terrible statistics loom over the lives of indigenous women: They are more than twice as likely as non-Native women to be victims of sexual violence and domestic violence, and one in three will be raped in her lifetime. According to [...]

Presidential Proclamation-15th Anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act

September 14, 2009
FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 A PROCLAMATION
Today, we commemorate a milestone in our Nation’s struggle to end violence against women. Authored by then United States Senator Joe Biden and signed into law in September 1994, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) [...]

“I wish we had called police”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Text: Send a new message in our rural communities
“I wish we had called the police on any one of those nights, but we just thought that she would handle it.” – Quote from a neighbor of Candace Wertz who, along with three other people, including two toddlers, was killed by her former boyfriend when he [...]

Send a new message in our rural communities

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Text:  Send a new message in our rural communities
“In rural areas, you’re probably going to see a higher proportion of domestic violence cases just because THE PERPETRATOR IS NOT GETTING THE MESSAGE that it’s wrong to keep doing what they’re doing.”
Law enforcement quote in response to the killing of Candace Wertz and three other people, [...]

What women want poster

Text:
what women want — is justice
___________________________
“If someone commits murder, it shouldn’t take no frigging two years to put them away.”
Quoting Claudette Carpenter, whose mother, Marie Desmond, was stabbed thirty-three times. George Howard Desmond, Marie’s estranged husband, was sentenced to life in prison two years after Marie’s death.

Give Us Your Huddled Masses – But Battered Women Need Not Apply!

The Huffington Post July 6, 2009
William Fisher
Give Us Your Huddled Masses – But Battered Women Need Not Apply!
Here’s a note for the “to do” list of the Obama Administration’s newly appointed Domestic Violence Czar – or Czarina in this case: Battered wives and significant others pose a serious law enforcement and public health problem affecting [...]

New book – Dangerous Exits: Escaping abusive relationships in rural America

Dangerous Exits: Escaping Abusive Relationships in Rural America
By DeKeseredy, Walter S., Schwartz, Martin D.
ISBN:9780813545196
Publisher, Rutgers University Press, June 2009
Information from Rutgers University Press website:
Praise for Dangerous Exits
“This book deserves a special place among the panoply of new scholarship on rural crime. Innovative and multi-dimensional, Dangerous Exits sounds a powerful call for action and policy [...]

OVW Announces Recovery Act STOP Formula Awards to States

OVW announced more than $100 million in Recovery Act awards to states to support comprehensive strategies addressing violence against women. The STOP (Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors) Violence Against Women Formula Grant Program (STOP Program) supports a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach to stopping and responding to crimes of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.
United States [...]