October is Domestic Violence Awareness month

by Abigail Knowles Wolfe (BPRW)

October  is national Domestic Violence Awareness month. This official recognition observed for the first time in 1987, has evolved from an initial Day of Unity held the same month in 1981, the intent, to connect battered women’s advocates across the country. The National Coalition of Domestic Violence did not have the Internet as a tool at its disposal back in the early 1980’s yet has been able to grow and expand exponentially in its goal to end domestic violence against women and their children to an extensive network today.

Domestic violence has been at the forefront of our national conscience for years yet has become particularly prevalent in the past months with the alleged parking lot beating of the Prophetess Juanita Bynum and the recent murder of 28 year-old Nailah Franklin. Midwestern pharmaceutical sales representative Nailah Franklin was a beautiful and bright, young African American woman working for Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly. She was missing for a week, mid-September, before police found her abandoned car and then her body left in a wooded area in a Chicago suburb. Police suspect an ex-boyfriend or male stalker as responsible for ending Franklin’s life.

According to a 2000 report by the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, black women and men suffer the most from domestic violence, with the highest national rates. African American women, in fact, experience domestic violence at a rate of about 35% higher than that of their white counterparts and at about 22 times the rate of women of other ethnicities. Black women are also less likely to report abuse to the police due to the perceived racial injustice they see in the criminal justice system.

It is important to remember that domestic violence is not the means by which a particular couple of family chooses to work out differences but a crime to be taken very seriously. The first national toll-free hotline put in place for women suffering under the circumstances of domestic violence began in 1987. Congress passed the first Domestic Violence Awareness Month Commemorative Legislation in 1989. Advocates throughout the United States have been fighting to bring awareness, as well as an end to domestic violence. Each October let us hope that we’ve made it one step closer to that goal.

For more information on how you can take action log on to:

www.ncadv.org
www.ndvh.org
www.endabuse.org
www.domesticviolence.org
www.standagainstdv.org