VAWnet News Blog

FROM 28th November 2016, a new central phone line and online portal will be available to victims and survivors of sexual violence and child sexual abuse from across Essex. The new service will help victims and survivors to access the specialist Rape Crisis services they need, when they need them.

More than 10 million men and women in the United States are victims of domestic violence every year, almost 20 people every minute. Starting January 1, the state of Illinois will implement a unique approach to ending domestic violence in the state.

LOGAN — Animal abuse is not just a crime of violence against dogs, cats and other domestic animals; it’s also believed to be a key precursor activity to crimes of violence against humans — so much so that the FBI has begun collecting animal cruelty crime data for use in investigating such crimes as child abuse, sexual assault and homicide. “There’s a direct correlation between animal abuse and crimes against people,” said Nelson Ferry, program analyst for the FBI’s Clarksburg-based Crime Statistics Management Unit.

When Jasmine Khalfani was married in 1971, she said police didn't take accusations of domestic violence very seriously. "If you called them, the police wouldn't show up or they'd tell you to play nice," said Khalfani in a two-minute video available on the website of Cambridge domestic violence shelter Transition House. And so she left. She walked out, covered in bumps and bruises. But that's not the end of her story. Now, Khalfani is director of housing at Transition House, helping other women survive the same transition from an abusive situation.

Stereotypes and myths around sexual violence still hold currency among students, says Stephen Pihlaja Our research tried to get to grips with why sexual violence is so endemic on campuses. Perhaps uniquely, the data come from students, through students. We trained student leaders, using specialists in sexual violence from partner organisations and community practitioners, and then helped them gather data and stories from their peers. 

In a disturbing report, an NGO has found that nearly half of the children in slums from families with history of domestic violence become prone to drug abuse. The Madhya Pradesh women and child development (WCD) department didn’t rule out “such a possibility”. The study, conducted by Eva Welfare Organisation for over a period of two years in 15 slums here, recorded the pattern in the households of over 10,453 families. Domestic violence was recorded in 8,685 families. In most of the cases, the head of the family too was found involved in drug abuse.