VAWnet News Blog

Tell Me More guest host Celeste Headlee spoke with Oliver Williams, a professor of social work who heads the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African-American Community at the University of Minnesota.

“During the two week government shutdown OVW heard from grantees about the dire financial circumstances many programs faced. In communities across the country domestic violence services providers, shelters, and health care clinics were forced to shorten business hours, and in some cases furlough employees.

“A new national study released on Oct. 22 reveals that although 44% of women experience domestic violence, 76% say they have never been asked about domestic violence in a medical exam.”

The Violence Against Women Act, our nation’s response to intimate partner violence, was recently passed with explicit inclusion of LGBT survivors of violence and implementation began October 1st.

“‘Males have the added burden of facing a society that doesn’t believe rape can happen to them … at all,’ says psychotherapist Elizabeth Donovan.” Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/09/living/chris-brown-female-on-male-rape/index.html?hpt=hp_bn11

“But experts in the field say that one set of victims — black women — is at a far greater risk to experience the grimmest of all domestic violence statistics: They are about three times more likely to die at the hands of a partner or ex-partner than members of other racial groups. Intimate-partner homicide is also among the leading causes of death for black women ages 15 to 35.”