While many of the most dear people in our lives are, hopefully, being honored and pampered today, there are many that are being severely beaten. Mothers Day is not the issue with them, but survival is. To use an old, worn and too often quoted statistic, one in three women/mothers in our country will be blatantly abused today! That number may be low since the economy has continued to worsen since most of those surveys were taken.
Most practitioners in the dv arena will reject the theory that economic factors are the cause of a victim being abused, however, most will readily admit that worsening economic status in a family where abuse occurs is a factor in the escalation of abuse.
With today's severe economic conditions in many families, we have reports of a strange phenominon. Many battered women shelters in the Phoenix area are reporting a reduction in victims coming to the shelters. Some months ago, these shelters were reporting being forced to turn away up to 50% of the applicants to shelters. Today some are reporting that up to 50% of their beds are vacant.
We have researched the issues and it is this author's opinion that the incidents of violence have increased, not diminished, but the economy has caused victims, especially women, to just stay where they are and take the beatings. Everything in the home where domestic violence exists worsens when an economic downturn occurs. If the batterer loses his job, the amount of time he spends at home increases and can become almost constant. The friction that already exists dramatically increases as they are thrown together almost constantly. In the event the victim has not given up hope of escaping the relationship and the opportunity to get away is dramatically reduced.
This saddens us here at Fix the Hurt, and causes us resolve to work even harder to help fix the hurt. Our new play, Control.Assault.Delete, is ready to go on the road, heavy efforts are being made to get "Domestic Violence, The Musical?" in front of more people. We have embarked on the writing of I Have This Friend, dating violence musical and are working with David Barker to get his great one-man domestic violence play, Dodging Bullets, in front of more audiences.
John sayd, "A penny saved is a government oversight."
Most practitioners in the dv arena will reject the theory that economic factors are the cause of a victim being abused, however, most will readily admit that worsening economic status in a family where abuse occurs is a factor in the escalation of abuse.
With today's severe economic conditions in many families, we have reports of a strange phenominon. Many battered women shelters in the Phoenix area are reporting a reduction in victims coming to the shelters. Some months ago, these shelters were reporting being forced to turn away up to 50% of the applicants to shelters. Today some are reporting that up to 50% of their beds are vacant.
We have researched the issues and it is this author's opinion that the incidents of violence have increased, not diminished, but the economy has caused victims, especially women, to just stay where they are and take the beatings. Everything in the home where domestic violence exists worsens when an economic downturn occurs. If the batterer loses his job, the amount of time he spends at home increases and can become almost constant. The friction that already exists dramatically increases as they are thrown together almost constantly. In the event the victim has not given up hope of escaping the relationship and the opportunity to get away is dramatically reduced.
This saddens us here at Fix the Hurt, and causes us resolve to work even harder to help fix the hurt. Our new play, Control.Assault.Delete, is ready to go on the road, heavy efforts are being made to get "Domestic Violence, The Musical?" in front of more people. We have embarked on the writing of I Have This Friend, dating violence musical and are working with David Barker to get his great one-man domestic violence play, Dodging Bullets, in front of more audiences.
John sayd, "A penny saved is a government oversight."
