2 women a week are
murdered in Britain by their male partner, or ex-partner. The most dangerous time for a woman who has experienced domestic violence is when she leaves, or tries to leave.
The police in Britain receive
500,000 calls a year from women who suffer domestic violence.
Domestic violence is the
major cause of death for women under the age of 44 - more than
cancer.
Women are assaulted an average of
35 times by their partner before calling the police, according to the
Home Office.
On average, the police in Britain receive a call
every minute of every day regarding domestic violence.
And what are we doing with this information? This is a national crisis! An international crisis indeed, because it's not like this doesn't happen outside the UK.
You want to talk about terrorism? THIS is terrorism. The terror that millions of women are facing in their homes, from men they live with who control and bully and batter and rape and kill them.
Being raped in your home by the man who will do it again the next night, and the next night, and the next night, along with being punched, kicked, scratched, abused and humiliated, is the situation for too, too many women. Think about it, the most conservative statistics state that
1 in 7 women experience domestic violence in their lives. One out of every SEVEN women forced to live with this. Why isn't there an outcry? Where are the banners, the protests, the emergency legislation, the national and international committees resolving to sort this problem by the end of the year?
Why is this not being taken as seriously as it needs to be? It couldn't be anything to do with the victims being women, could it?
Read those statistics at the start of the post again. And again. Until you have begun to really absorb them.
You might wish you hadn't, or that you could bury your head in the sand because the reality is
terrifying. You might have nightmares. You might realise you can't pretend you don't hear what goes on in your neighbour's house any more. Or that ignoring those bruises on your sister's arms is no longer an option.
Or that you can't see a way out of your own situation. If that is the case,
call 0808 2000 247, which is a 24 hour helpline from
women's aid. They can actually help. If you're in
Yorkshire, here is a list of
organisations that can help.
Violence against women is terrorism, do all you can to make it stop.
Blog against sexual violence day.