Abused Women Tell of Terror At Domestic Violence Conference

"My nightmare began on my wedding night," a battered woman told a rapt overflow audience gathered at York College last week to explore domestic violence.
She was among three victims who addressed a day-long conference, "Domestic Violence: The Price We Pay," called to draw attention and resources to a growing problem in the borough.
The Queens womans husband, a cop, terrorized her for years physically and mentally until she believed herself to be worthless.
When she finally called the police to intervene on a night when her husband beat her brutally, she was told, "Lady, you might as well put a cop between you and him in bed."
The conference was sponsored by Borough President Claire Shulman, the Task Force Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence and the Womens Center of York College.
Three survivors of domestic violence told their chilling stories of violence at the hands of abusive men. They put a face on a growing problem in Queens where 5,000 cases of domestic violence out of 12,000 complaints were prosecuted by the district attorney.
October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
"Each year, at least one million women suffer violence from an acquaintance," said Borough President Claire Shulman who opened the conference. "One in three adult women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood."
The three survivors spoke in hushed tones before an audience of nearly 200 on how abusive husbands kept them in their thrall with threats to take their children away if they "step out of line."
One woman said her husband told her:
"You are worthless. If you leave me youll never see the kids again."
One battered wife described how she wound up in the emergency room lying on a gurney after her husband blackened her eye and left bruises on her body.
"If you tell, the kids will get it," he said to his injured wife.
This battered wife was 17 when she married her 28-year-old husband.
"He swept me off my feet," she told the audience at York College. "He was in a rush for everything including getting married. And as quickly, he turned violent."
The victimized wife finally escaped her abusive husbands clutches when she contacted Nancy Diaz of the Queens Womens Center.
"She made it possible for me to break the cycle of violence and get out of the relationship."
At the conference, Diaz received the first Barbara Kuchuck Memorial Award named after the late Shulman aide who before her death in July organized each years conference and crusaded against domestic violence.
Conference organizers Fern Zagor and Sherry Price who are co-chairs of the Task Force Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence credited the office of District Attorney Richard Brown and Victim Services in borough hall with providing vital, often life-saving assistance to Queens women brutalized in their homes.
The case histories of domestic violence related last week gave outsiders a rare look at a nether world where women are enslaved, controlled by threats, denied financial security and, perhaps worst of all, live in terror that their children will be taken away from them.
"He denied us food, we were on food stamps and lived from hand to mouth," one abused woman said.
Another victim put it this way:
"I believed in Cinderella," she said. "I was sheltered by my parents, but soon found myself damaged goods in a terrible marriage."
The mother of three children, she lived her nightmare for years until one day her distraught oldest son confronted her.
"Mommy, lets go," he said tearfully.
Her husband dominated her with a string of indignities.
"He told me I was ugly, stripped me of my strength and then after we split broke into my house and stole my son," she said. She finally obtained an order of protection.
The abused women who spoke credited their success in reclaiming their lives to the task force and the Womens Center.
"I shall survive by building up my self-esteem," one of the former victims told the packed auditorium at York College. "You cant break me anymore."