Genius
09-01-2010, 08:50 PM
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Dead-Women-Walking-Americ-by-Freedom-For-All-100821-961.html
Dead Women Walking: America's Domestic Violence Victims, Women without Hope
By Freedom For All
The purpose of this article is to clear up a lot of confusion about what happens when domestic violence victims come forward in an attempt to extricate themselves from their situation. Most people are under the false impression that doors open and victims get some type of assistance after a restraining order is obtained. In the vast majority of cases, victims get no assistance of any kind and instead find only closed doors, leaving them to wonder if they would have been better off dead at the hands of their abuser.
Restraining orders are hard to get and available with lots of evidence against only the most violent batterers. The requirements of proof are extremely stringent. Only 48% of domestic violence (DV) victims are able to convince a judge to grant a DV restraining order. Once the heavy burden is met and the DV restraining order is granted, society and public officials treat domestic violence victims as yesterday's trash and the order as a worthless piece of paper. At the same time, batterers are treated as celebrities who deserve to have all they want, including the death of their victims.
After you get the restraining order::
Expect no support of any kind.
Expect to starve since you will probably not qualify for food stamps or general relief.
Expect to lose your phone and Internet and to have your computer snatched. Federal law allows your batterer to suspend your cell service and permanently prevent you from re-activating your phone. Thanks Congress.
Expect to be stranded out of gas, if you are lucky enough get your car to work as your road service will likely be cut and your car will be vandalized, regularly with no consequences.
Expect the police to enforce the restraining order you got against your batterer against you on behalf of your batterer.
Expect attorneys to triple their rate when they find out you are a DV victim while your batterer easily finds representation. Legal aid is out as your batterer probably put you on a permanent legal aid conflict of interest list the day you got the restraining order.
Realize that domestic violence non-profits are businesses who care far less about you than about pretending all is peachy. Their pretense at caring is a fiction that could leave you dead.
Expect the Public Guardian to try to confiscate any property belonging to your elderly relatives. Your elderly relatives crimes: (1) they were related to a DV victim and (2) they have property.
Expect to lose custody of your children to the guy who beat you up.
Expect to have your health care terminated while you are in the intensive care unit suffering from injuries inflicted by your batterer. In OrangeCounty, family law judges are approving this termination of insurance benefits. Better yet, wait for the bill, which will easily top the hundred thousand mark. Hospitals inflate, especially when a broke DV victim is the patient.
Expect to be killed legally by your batterer. This may happen through lack of health care for terminal injuries or perhaps from being stranded in dangerous locations, such as in the middle of the desert with no gas, no road service and no way to pay for it. Batterers are very creative at coming up with legal ways to kill their victims. Our government couldn't care less.
How do I know? I personally experienced most of these consequences after I obtained a restraining order against a batterer whose attacks on me were so disturbing that the judge sealed the photographs. In some cases, I watched other DV victims go through consequences mentioned above that I was lucky enough to ecape.
Last year, after a Personal Empowerment Program session at Laura's House, a domestic violence shelter to which I had been referred by a doctor, another DV victim came up to me and said, "Don't leave. You'll be homeless. I know that's not what Laura's House wants me to tell you. If I could go back, I wouldn't leave. I'd be better off." For too many victims, her warnings were correct. The system is not designed to assist victims after they leave. It is designed to encourage them to jump from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.
Another domestic violence victim I met at Laura's House, this one from Riverside, lamented the loss of her children. After she entered a shelter, a judge declared that a DV shelter is no place for children and returned them to her batterer. From speaking to others at Laura's House, I learned that this is a common occurrence.
In my situation, I protected my kids. I had no choice as I was homeschooling them. My husband had control of the transcripts and the money. He even threatened to destroy transcripts if I didn't call back 9-1-1 and tell them my earlier call was a mistake. I knew my daughter wanted to change the world and go to a great university and this would only be possible if I stayed. Homeschooling kills the financial ability of the women who do it and deprives them of social security, unemployment insurance or anything that could give them and the kids sustenance if they tried to get out.. It is also the best schooling approach for mothers who want their kids to be accepted at Harvard or Berkeley.
The beatings took place with increasing frequency over 20 years of the 31 year marriage. Doctors kept trying to get me to admit my husband had caused the injuries they saw, but I covered for him again and again. I would hide the bruises and go smiling to parties and political events. Politicians often said mine was the perfect family. I wanted to maintain this illusion in order to give my kids respectability.Too often, DV victims and their kids are looked down upon and shunned by society.
The beatings involved punches to my head, having my hair pulled and my face shoved against doors, walls and other objects by my loving husband, being kicked in the chest and stomach with shoes, being choked, having a baseball bat and other dangerous items swung at my head, being hit with a car, having knives pointed at me, being pushed down staircases, and other niceties that are all more pleasant than most of what I've had to endure since I got the restraining order. The pictures were so graphic the judge decided to seal them to protect my privacy.
I had an escape plan. If my kids believed my husband had killed me or was about to kill me, they were to get out of the house and call friends, Paul and Harriet, and have Paul and Harriet fly them to other friends, Ken and Carmelita, in Canada. My kids had notes advising Paul and Harriet of the need and that they would be reimbursed for the flight costs. Escape plans where the victim dies are common. After a while, most victims accept the likelihood of their own death and focus on more important matters. The average victim would gladly die to protect her children. You haven't seen courage until you see the protection plans domestic violence victims create for their loved ones while dooming themselves to probable death.
After the order, my road service was terminated. With no gas money, I found myself pushing my car around a lot. I call it the DV method of transportation. On various mornings, I noticed that my car was trashed. One of my tires was cut with a knife according to the tire guy who looked at it. My home phone and Internet service were cut. My cell phone was suspended so that my batterer could keep control of the number, an isolation technique. My laptop was stolen and given away. Irreplaceable pictures were destroyed. I received no support and had to accept handouts.
My medical insurance was cut, with the judges permission, while I was in the cardiac intensive care unit following heart surgery. The doctor told me my problem was caused by the stress of the batteries. In fact, as I spoke about the batteries, the chest pain increased and my blood pressure jumped into astronomical ranges. My batterers kicks to my chest were also not good for my heart. While the doctor said I needed follow-up treatment to live, I knew that no such follow-up treatment could occur as I had no money and my insurance had been terminated. The intent was clear as my batterer told me his greatest wish was for me to die in pain of a horrible disease as I was not worthy to live.
One has to wonder about a jsociety that lets a batterer cut his wife's insurance while she is in danger of dying as a result of the batteries. The cost of the insurance was low compared to the thousands he was hoarding. One also has to wonder about legislators and judges who would allow him to do it. I wasn't even safe in the hospital, where my batterer sent me a harassing message following surgery.
All this was minor compared to what my batterer did to my elderly mother. He imprisoned her, trashed her house, starved her, dehydrated her, ran up tens of thousands in unpaid credit debts on her accounts and refused to pay his debts to her. After I and my friends managed to rescue my mother, the Public Guardian's office came after my mom as if she was the criminal. Important lesson: the Public Guardian is only interested in confiscating property to help the government survive the recession. Nobody went after the batterer who did it to her.
The police used my restraining order against my husband against myself and my mom, insisting it meant that I had to avoid coming to the aid of my mom while she was his prisoner. They called all his violations of the restraining order, "civil."
Later my mother got a temporary restraining order against my batterer, but the Public Guardian continued to go after her and not after the batterer.
My batterer is now living in luxury as he has been allowed to keep virtually all the community funds.
Here's the other problem. Family law attorneys won't do pro bono work for domestic violence victims even if the victim is a fellow attorney from another area of law. As the batterers often walk into legal aid, right after the temporary restraining order, legal aid is not available to the victim due to a conflict of interest. I tried to seek their services and the legal aid receptions was amused by my complaint about the treatment of DV victims. In reality, they should compartmentalize to prevent this from happening but they seem to like the idea of rejecting needy potential clients..
Often disreputable attorneys, falsely representing themselves as family law attorneys, will rook DV victims by taking the money and doing nothing. Others will just treat the victims like yesterday's garbage. DV victims often have to turn to attorneys from other areas of law. The inherent problem with that is that a batterer's family law attorney can get away with unfounded arguments against an attorney who is out of his usual field of practice.
More than 46 women are dying daily because there is no realistic hope for their freedom from beatings. Are they right in staying? For too many women who have left, the answer is an emphatic but too late, "yes." Don't blame the victim for doing what is best for survival for herself and her loved ones. Blame the society and government that gives her no way out.
With women too often being better off dead than leaving a violent situation, it is a sign our society is in serious moral trouble. What kind of legislators refuse to do the legislative work to save women who die out of fear their families will suffer if they leave? What kind of society pretends that women have options when they don't have any at all? What kind of mentality causes police officers to sympathize with batterers? What kind of friends treat the batterers as if they are normal men and the victims as if they are lepers? If the batterers did not get support and assistance from all too many friends after the truth is out, the 46 women who died today might still be alive. Yes, batterers do come off as nice guys. Instead of laughing at their jokes, friends should look at what the wives have gone through. The blood is on everyone's hands.
Your daughter or sister could be the next one to marry a batterer.There is almost no way to know the true nature of the future husband until the beatings start, often years or decades after the "I do's" Are you willing to let your sister or your daughter die at a wife beater's hands or are you willing to act today? Society can change but nobody will do anything to stop domestic violence if you don't. There is only today to act. Each of you is the only one who can change it. Don't wait for the funeral to wish you had acted to save someone you love. Demand change now.
Freedom for All is the chairman of a liberal Democratic club that is working to move the Democratic Party towards it's true base, the people. She has organized major political events and helped elect some of the most liberal politicians in America. She is also an attorney, private investigator and educator.
Dead Women Walking: America's Domestic Violence Victims, Women without Hope
By Freedom For All
The purpose of this article is to clear up a lot of confusion about what happens when domestic violence victims come forward in an attempt to extricate themselves from their situation. Most people are under the false impression that doors open and victims get some type of assistance after a restraining order is obtained. In the vast majority of cases, victims get no assistance of any kind and instead find only closed doors, leaving them to wonder if they would have been better off dead at the hands of their abuser.
Restraining orders are hard to get and available with lots of evidence against only the most violent batterers. The requirements of proof are extremely stringent. Only 48% of domestic violence (DV) victims are able to convince a judge to grant a DV restraining order. Once the heavy burden is met and the DV restraining order is granted, society and public officials treat domestic violence victims as yesterday's trash and the order as a worthless piece of paper. At the same time, batterers are treated as celebrities who deserve to have all they want, including the death of their victims.
After you get the restraining order::
Expect no support of any kind.
Expect to starve since you will probably not qualify for food stamps or general relief.
Expect to lose your phone and Internet and to have your computer snatched. Federal law allows your batterer to suspend your cell service and permanently prevent you from re-activating your phone. Thanks Congress.
Expect to be stranded out of gas, if you are lucky enough get your car to work as your road service will likely be cut and your car will be vandalized, regularly with no consequences.
Expect the police to enforce the restraining order you got against your batterer against you on behalf of your batterer.
Expect attorneys to triple their rate when they find out you are a DV victim while your batterer easily finds representation. Legal aid is out as your batterer probably put you on a permanent legal aid conflict of interest list the day you got the restraining order.
Realize that domestic violence non-profits are businesses who care far less about you than about pretending all is peachy. Their pretense at caring is a fiction that could leave you dead.
Expect the Public Guardian to try to confiscate any property belonging to your elderly relatives. Your elderly relatives crimes: (1) they were related to a DV victim and (2) they have property.
Expect to lose custody of your children to the guy who beat you up.
Expect to have your health care terminated while you are in the intensive care unit suffering from injuries inflicted by your batterer. In OrangeCounty, family law judges are approving this termination of insurance benefits. Better yet, wait for the bill, which will easily top the hundred thousand mark. Hospitals inflate, especially when a broke DV victim is the patient.
Expect to be killed legally by your batterer. This may happen through lack of health care for terminal injuries or perhaps from being stranded in dangerous locations, such as in the middle of the desert with no gas, no road service and no way to pay for it. Batterers are very creative at coming up with legal ways to kill their victims. Our government couldn't care less.
How do I know? I personally experienced most of these consequences after I obtained a restraining order against a batterer whose attacks on me were so disturbing that the judge sealed the photographs. In some cases, I watched other DV victims go through consequences mentioned above that I was lucky enough to ecape.
Last year, after a Personal Empowerment Program session at Laura's House, a domestic violence shelter to which I had been referred by a doctor, another DV victim came up to me and said, "Don't leave. You'll be homeless. I know that's not what Laura's House wants me to tell you. If I could go back, I wouldn't leave. I'd be better off." For too many victims, her warnings were correct. The system is not designed to assist victims after they leave. It is designed to encourage them to jump from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.
Another domestic violence victim I met at Laura's House, this one from Riverside, lamented the loss of her children. After she entered a shelter, a judge declared that a DV shelter is no place for children and returned them to her batterer. From speaking to others at Laura's House, I learned that this is a common occurrence.
In my situation, I protected my kids. I had no choice as I was homeschooling them. My husband had control of the transcripts and the money. He even threatened to destroy transcripts if I didn't call back 9-1-1 and tell them my earlier call was a mistake. I knew my daughter wanted to change the world and go to a great university and this would only be possible if I stayed. Homeschooling kills the financial ability of the women who do it and deprives them of social security, unemployment insurance or anything that could give them and the kids sustenance if they tried to get out.. It is also the best schooling approach for mothers who want their kids to be accepted at Harvard or Berkeley.
The beatings took place with increasing frequency over 20 years of the 31 year marriage. Doctors kept trying to get me to admit my husband had caused the injuries they saw, but I covered for him again and again. I would hide the bruises and go smiling to parties and political events. Politicians often said mine was the perfect family. I wanted to maintain this illusion in order to give my kids respectability.Too often, DV victims and their kids are looked down upon and shunned by society.
The beatings involved punches to my head, having my hair pulled and my face shoved against doors, walls and other objects by my loving husband, being kicked in the chest and stomach with shoes, being choked, having a baseball bat and other dangerous items swung at my head, being hit with a car, having knives pointed at me, being pushed down staircases, and other niceties that are all more pleasant than most of what I've had to endure since I got the restraining order. The pictures were so graphic the judge decided to seal them to protect my privacy.
I had an escape plan. If my kids believed my husband had killed me or was about to kill me, they were to get out of the house and call friends, Paul and Harriet, and have Paul and Harriet fly them to other friends, Ken and Carmelita, in Canada. My kids had notes advising Paul and Harriet of the need and that they would be reimbursed for the flight costs. Escape plans where the victim dies are common. After a while, most victims accept the likelihood of their own death and focus on more important matters. The average victim would gladly die to protect her children. You haven't seen courage until you see the protection plans domestic violence victims create for their loved ones while dooming themselves to probable death.
After the order, my road service was terminated. With no gas money, I found myself pushing my car around a lot. I call it the DV method of transportation. On various mornings, I noticed that my car was trashed. One of my tires was cut with a knife according to the tire guy who looked at it. My home phone and Internet service were cut. My cell phone was suspended so that my batterer could keep control of the number, an isolation technique. My laptop was stolen and given away. Irreplaceable pictures were destroyed. I received no support and had to accept handouts.
My medical insurance was cut, with the judges permission, while I was in the cardiac intensive care unit following heart surgery. The doctor told me my problem was caused by the stress of the batteries. In fact, as I spoke about the batteries, the chest pain increased and my blood pressure jumped into astronomical ranges. My batterers kicks to my chest were also not good for my heart. While the doctor said I needed follow-up treatment to live, I knew that no such follow-up treatment could occur as I had no money and my insurance had been terminated. The intent was clear as my batterer told me his greatest wish was for me to die in pain of a horrible disease as I was not worthy to live.
One has to wonder about a jsociety that lets a batterer cut his wife's insurance while she is in danger of dying as a result of the batteries. The cost of the insurance was low compared to the thousands he was hoarding. One also has to wonder about legislators and judges who would allow him to do it. I wasn't even safe in the hospital, where my batterer sent me a harassing message following surgery.
All this was minor compared to what my batterer did to my elderly mother. He imprisoned her, trashed her house, starved her, dehydrated her, ran up tens of thousands in unpaid credit debts on her accounts and refused to pay his debts to her. After I and my friends managed to rescue my mother, the Public Guardian's office came after my mom as if she was the criminal. Important lesson: the Public Guardian is only interested in confiscating property to help the government survive the recession. Nobody went after the batterer who did it to her.
The police used my restraining order against my husband against myself and my mom, insisting it meant that I had to avoid coming to the aid of my mom while she was his prisoner. They called all his violations of the restraining order, "civil."
Later my mother got a temporary restraining order against my batterer, but the Public Guardian continued to go after her and not after the batterer.
My batterer is now living in luxury as he has been allowed to keep virtually all the community funds.
Here's the other problem. Family law attorneys won't do pro bono work for domestic violence victims even if the victim is a fellow attorney from another area of law. As the batterers often walk into legal aid, right after the temporary restraining order, legal aid is not available to the victim due to a conflict of interest. I tried to seek their services and the legal aid receptions was amused by my complaint about the treatment of DV victims. In reality, they should compartmentalize to prevent this from happening but they seem to like the idea of rejecting needy potential clients..
Often disreputable attorneys, falsely representing themselves as family law attorneys, will rook DV victims by taking the money and doing nothing. Others will just treat the victims like yesterday's garbage. DV victims often have to turn to attorneys from other areas of law. The inherent problem with that is that a batterer's family law attorney can get away with unfounded arguments against an attorney who is out of his usual field of practice.
More than 46 women are dying daily because there is no realistic hope for their freedom from beatings. Are they right in staying? For too many women who have left, the answer is an emphatic but too late, "yes." Don't blame the victim for doing what is best for survival for herself and her loved ones. Blame the society and government that gives her no way out.
With women too often being better off dead than leaving a violent situation, it is a sign our society is in serious moral trouble. What kind of legislators refuse to do the legislative work to save women who die out of fear their families will suffer if they leave? What kind of society pretends that women have options when they don't have any at all? What kind of mentality causes police officers to sympathize with batterers? What kind of friends treat the batterers as if they are normal men and the victims as if they are lepers? If the batterers did not get support and assistance from all too many friends after the truth is out, the 46 women who died today might still be alive. Yes, batterers do come off as nice guys. Instead of laughing at their jokes, friends should look at what the wives have gone through. The blood is on everyone's hands.
Your daughter or sister could be the next one to marry a batterer.There is almost no way to know the true nature of the future husband until the beatings start, often years or decades after the "I do's" Are you willing to let your sister or your daughter die at a wife beater's hands or are you willing to act today? Society can change but nobody will do anything to stop domestic violence if you don't. There is only today to act. Each of you is the only one who can change it. Don't wait for the funeral to wish you had acted to save someone you love. Demand change now.
Freedom for All is the chairman of a liberal Democratic club that is working to move the Democratic Party towards it's true base, the people. She has organized major political events and helped elect some of the most liberal politicians in America. She is also an attorney, private investigator and educator.