Domestic Violence Awareness Month Brings Public Awareness To The Issue
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A purple ribbon for National Domestic Violence Awareness Month (Creative Commons).
Last Thursday, Los Angeles-based Peace Over Violence (POV) held an open house at their headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard in downtown. The organization, which provides education, outreach and support for victims of sexual and domestic violence, was honoring Domestic Violence Awareness Month, as well as an expansion of service offerings they will be offering to local children and teens.
"This is an expansion for our organization based on our long-term goal to bring healing and respond to trauma across the lifespan," said Heather Masterton, director of development for POV. "Right now we provide services for 13-year-olds though elders. This expansion is focused on child sexual abuse and what is domestic abuse or sexual abuse by an abusive parent."
POV is one of the leading organizations working in Los Angeles to provide support to victims of domestic and sexual violence. One of the core areas of programming POV and other members of the Violence Prevention Coalition (VPC) focus on is the connection between domestic violence and gang violence.
"We see that a lot of violence in the streets begins as violence in the home," said Daniel Healy, community liaison for VPC. As such, a group of advocates meets monthly at City Hall to discuss what is known as the "domestic violence and gang violence nexus."
Domestic violence calls received in LA County in 2011, from SafeLA.org
According to the California Women‘s Health Survey, approximately 40 percent of California women experience physical intimate partner violence in their lifetimes, a rate much higher than the national average of 25 percent.
The Administration for Children and Families’ Division of Family Violence Prevention and Services, a department of Health and Human Services will host a “National Domestic Violence Awareness Unity Call” on Tuesday, Oct. 2, from 3 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. EST.
Reach Staff Reporter Ashley Riegle here. Follow her on Twitter here.
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one in four? whoa
Significant problem in L.A., female victims of stalkers and attacks if know their stalker or attacker are sent to courts dealing with "domestic violence" even if the female victim never lived with stalker or attacker, even if the female victim is not married or was never married to stalker or attacker. In my situation, it was a co-worker who stalked me (eye witnesses and witnesses identified the co-worker) and I believe attacked me, beat me unconscious, leaving me to bleed to death. I was not allowed to pursue court hearing through criminal court and sent to "Family Court" where my hearing was on the docket with family members with court hearing regarding defaulting on personal loans to family members, stolen furniture from family members, car accidents from borrowed cars from family members. I was a victim of stalking and an attempted murder; yet, my case was diminished to "Family Court" and domestic violence. Each and every victim should find an attorney who will fight for the victim to have the court hearing in "Criminal Court" and not "Family Court." The judge who heard my attempt at obtaining a restraining order (I failed due to the ineptitude of my attorney as well as a judge who, I believed, was biased toward me and other female victims) was not a judge sitting at the bench of criminal court, and clearly he was not the judge to hear my case...he didn't even read my detailed, notarized, evidence (eye witnesses with notarized letters; original letters from predator/attacker which threatened me...) filled note book (indexed, color-coded, table of content), the stalker and the predator who I believe almost took my life, was excused from court with a slight warning, and this stalker and predator left the court sneering and laughing at me. By the way, the physical description, as well as the physical description of his car, is the same description of a rapist and attempted rapist in the L.A. area over the last three years.
The judicial system must change, no victim of violence should be in "Family Court" nor categorized as "Domestic Violence" all cases should be in Criminal Courts.