Ramping up efforts to curb domestic violence
Published September 23, 2014
Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, September 22, 2014.
Across Northwest North Carolina today, just as every day, women (and men) will be assaulted in every way imaginable by their supposed loved ones. In some cases, children will watch, forever scarred, perhaps growing up to be abusers themselves.
It’s a pervasive problem plaguing us, one that goes largely ignored until big media focuses on a certain case, such as that of NFL running back Ray Rice. He was fired after a video surfaced of him knocking out his “loved one” in a hotel elevator.
We’ve got worse cases going on around us, albeit ones committed by relatively anonymous people. So good for area advocates for domestic-violence victims, including ones in Davie and Forsyth counties, who’ve used the Rice case as a jumping off point for renewed efforts to curb this deadly problem.
“There’s huge attention that this is bringing in,” Lorri Hayes, the director of the county’s Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Center, told the Journal’s Lisa O’Donnell.
Her center offers counseling, a crisis hotline, a weekly support group and such client services as attending court with victims.
O’Donnell reported that 416 people sought “life-saving” services from Hayes’ office last year. Hayes said that they were mostly women who were afraid for their lives.
Two years ago this week, Sarah Browder was killed by her husband in front of her in-laws’ Bermuda Run home.
Hayes hopes that the Rice video will encourage more women to seek help. “Every person has a time when they’re ready,” she told O’Donnell. “And then there are people like Janay [Rice], who are sticking with him, and her football-wife friends who are behind her on it. So it really depends on where the person is on their journey.”
Hayes confronts the age-old questions, such as why women stay with batterers. “It’s complex and not something you can explain in one sentence,” she said. “Who was the abuser when she met him? He was Prince Charming. Only after she’s in love with him does the abuser start his tactics, and it’s subtle, little things like what she’s wearing, putting her family down, then it escalates over time. They don’t really see the person all at once.”
And she confronts the question of why more women don’t pursue charges. “Even if they initiate (the process), they will want to drop charges and go back, and that’s the cycle of violence. A woman leaves anywhere from seven to 10 times before she actually stays away for good,” Hayes said.
A lot more help is needed in the effort to curb domestic violence. There’s lots of room for people to give their time and talents.
Here’s one potential project worth thinking about: Davie County lacks a shelter for domestic violence victims. Ideas for establishing one would be welcome.
