Domestic Violence Updates
Friend to Friend is committed to researching the latest data and information relating to best practices for survivors of domestic violence. Friend to Friend is committed to communicating. partnering and collaborating with local , national and international advocates to improve our responses and services to DV survivors. The Hotline is a great resource for domestic violence information. Each year, the Hotline complies data and observes trends and creates an annual Domestic Violence US Impact Report.
In 2017, the National Domestic Violence Hotline leveraged issue-specific data to help shape the national conversation about domestic violence.
Here is a brief summary from the Hotline’s 2017 Impact Report:
● Emotional Abuse: 86% reported some type of emotional and verbal abuse. Emotionally abusive partners often exert power and control over their partners by limiting who they see, what they do, and where they go. They instill shame and fear and often demean their partners with insults, threats, and punishments that slowly eat away at their partner’s self-worth. Emotional abusers isolate their victims by preventing them from making decisions, working outside the home, or seeing family and friends. We often hear from women that this type of abusive behavior takes place over years before turning physical.
● Financial Abuse: 22% reported their abusers were stealing money or limiting access to money, using their partner’s credit cards, or forcing their partners to co-sign on lines of credit. Some forced their partners to open joint accounts and prevented them from opening separate accounts or having access to their own money.
● Physical Abuse: 60% reported some type of physical abuse such as hitting, biting, and choking. Physical abuse is often what most people think about when we use the term domestic violence.
● Digital Abuse: 12% Examples of digital abuse include using GPS or a cell phone to stalk their partners or track their travel, relentlessly sending text messages, closely monitoring computer use, and using cameras in the home to monitor activities. The use of digital abuse category changes with innovations in technology.
● Sexual Abuse: 10% Abusive partners may do things such as forcing unwanted sexual activity, involving other people in sexual activities without permission, forced viewing of pornography or demanding their partner wear sexually explicit clothing.
During the briefing, Debbie Coffey, Vice President of Communications for New Avon LLC, talked about how the lack of financial resources and lack of personal safety are two reinforcing co-dependent crises. “Without adequate economic resources, women can become imprisoned in a vicious downward cycle from which it is difficult to break free. Given Avon’s focus on providing economic opportunities, it is only natural that the company is passionate about ending violence against women because a woman cannot be truly empowered unless her health and safety are guaranteed. We’re proud to support the National Domestic Violence Hotline and believe in the power of public-private partnerships to bring forth innovative solutions to help end this epidemic of abuse.”