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Did you know...
*Millions of women are physically, sexually or emotional abused by someone they know and love.
*Domestic Violence is the leading cause of injury to women in the US between ages 15 and 44-more than car accidents, mugging and rape combined. (Uniform Crime Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1991)
*Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend. (Children Now/Kaiser Permanente poll, December 1995)
*The vast majority of children whose mothers are abused are aware of the abuse, whether they directly witnessed it or not. (National Center on Women and the Law, 1990)
*Studies suggest that between 3.3 and 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually. (Carlson, Bonnie E (1984). Children's Observations of Interpersonal Violence. Pp 147-167 in A.R. Roberts (Ed.) Battered Women and Their Families (pp. 147-167). NY: Springer, Straus, M.A. (1992). Children as witnesses to marital violence: A risk factor for lifelong problems among a nationally representative sample of American men and women. Report of the Twenty-Third Ross Roundtable. Columbus, OH: Ross Laboratories)
*Any woman or man may be abused. It happens to people of all ages, races, religions, income levels, education levels and sexual orientations.
*Approximately one-third of the men counseled (for battering) at Emerge (Boston) are professional men who are well respected in their jobs and communities. These have included doctors, psychologist, lawyers, ministers, and business executives. (For Shelter and Beyond, Massachusetts Coalition of Battered Women Service Group, Boston, MA 1990)
*Abuse is NEVER acceptable. Victims do not "ask for it" and it is not cause by alcohol, drugs, finances, depression or jealousy.
*Abuse can being or get worse when a woman is pregnant.
*Battered women are more likely to suffer miscarriages and give birth to babies with low birth weights. (Surgeon General, US, 1992)
*Not all types abuse are physical. There is also emotional abuse, verbal abuse and economic abuse.
*Battered women are often severely injured - 22 to 35% of women who visit medical emergency rooms are there for injuries related to ongoing partner abuse. (David Adams, Identifying the Assaultive Husband in Court: You be the Judge. Boston Bar Journal, 33-4, July/August 1989)
*Annually in the US, 503,485 women are stalked by an intimate partner. (Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, National Institute of Justice, 2000)
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