Facts/Background About Violence

• The vast majority of adult victims of domestic violence are women. Almost 95% of the victims who report domestic violence are women.
• Domestic violence is a serious crime that results in serious injury or death. In the US, battering is the major cause of injury to women aged 14-45, causing more injuries than auto accidents, muggings and rapes.
• Some violence statistics are declining. In 1996 women experienced an estimated 840,000 incidents of rape, sexual assault, battery, or victimization from an intimate, down from 1.1 million in 1993.
• Women aged 16-24 experience the highest per capita rates of intimate violence.
• About 1 in 10 women victims seek treatment for their injuries.
• Over 50% of female victims live in households with children under age 12.
• About 50% of the female victims of abuse were physically injured.

Responses to Violence

• 75% of female victims actively defend themselves
• 60% try to escape or call police
• 17% confront the attacker
• 23% offer no resistance

Signs of Domestic Violence:

• Your partner uses emotional control - Calls you names, puts you down, criticizes you constantly, is overprotective, is overly jealous, keeps you from seeing your friends or family, or humiliates you in front of others.
• Your partner uses economic control - Denies you access to your money, credit cards or bank accounts, controls all finances, forces accountings, takes your work money, prevents you from working, or limits access to doctors.
• Your partner makes threats - Threatens to report you to child protective services for acts you did not do, threatens to harm the children, threatens you with looks or gestures, uses a loss of temper to threaten you, or displays weapons.
• Your partner commits acts of violence - Actually hurts you or your children, destroys property, throws things, pushes, slaps, chokes you, denies you medications or access to food.