On March 15, Natasha Ramen was brutally killed - her throat was slashed - allegedly by the man she said had raped her two years earlier and who was threatening her and her family.
Ramen was due to testify against Hemant Megnath in the rape case and she tried to protect herself by doing what any law enforcement professional and domestic violence advocate would tell her to do - she got an order of protection against him.
Nevertheless, tragically, the order of protection did not provide her with the protection that she ne eded and now she is dead, her family mourns, and other battered women shudder with fear because the system fatally failed Ramen.
There is no doubt that many battered women who obtain orders of protection are, in fact, protected. There is also no doubt that some are not. These cases are the ones that we must examine to determine what went wrong and what else might have been done to help these victims.
Since the late 1970s, New York State and New York City have had fairly liberal laws, policies and regulations regarding domestic violence, including orders of protection.
In 1994, the passage of the federal Violence Against Women Act provided much needed support for criminal justice interventions in cases of sexual assault and domestic violence. This legislation, part of the federal Crime Bill, pushed local jurisdictions to enact more and better laws to protect battered women and their children, and to hold perpetrators accountable.
The city reports that between 1995 and 2003, it received over $300 million for domestic violence criminal justice and law enforcement interventions. This enabled the NYPD, DA’s offices, Probation and Parole to create specific programs and procedures to address family violence, child abuse and sexual assault and resulted in increased reporting, better police training and response and improved prosecution rates.
However, given this huge influx of federal money, new, innovative criminal justice remedies, and the overall decrease in city violent crime, one domestic violence statistic remains unchanged and disturbing - intimate partner homicide.
According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, from 1999 to 2004 the female intimate partner murder rate has remained steady. This is not the outcome one would expect after an investment of $300 million.
It seems clear that criminal justice remedies alone do not stop the violence. And crisis services, while necessary and crucial often occur after the fact. However, if we want to make additional progress toward deescalating and eventually eliminating domestic violence, there must be equal investment in prevention and early intervention services.
Battered women do not live in a vacuum.
Community members, co-workers, teachers, medical and social service staff, clergy and other members of faith communities as well as other community-based groups must understand domestic violence dynamics, learn to identify domestic violence situations and know how to support victims and children to be more safe.
In addition, we must hold men accountable for their abuse and help them desist from violence. This holistic community-based approach could ensure that intimate partner violence is addressed at all levels from prevention to providing emergency aid.
When we read about the murder of Natasha Ramen, or someone like her, we wonder how many more women will die before we acknowledge the limitations of our current system and act to improve it?
We can no longer be bystanders. Every one of us has to become an activist for non-violence and we need to do it before another woman is killed.
Kala Ganesh is the Executive Director of CONNECT, an organization which is dedicated to the prevention and elimination of family and gender violence and to the creation of safe families and peaceful communities. For more information go to www.CONNECTnyc.org or call 212-683-0015.
