Domestic Violence Awareness Day

The room was packed, all with people wearing a purple ribbon on their chest. Among the attendees were State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, State Assemblymember Ellen Young and City Councilmembers James Gennaro and John Liu. Nevertheless, for the most part, it was all women.
They were there to commemorate Domestic Violence Awareness Day on Wednesday, October 15 at the Queens College (QC) Campus.
The event has been held since 2005, and is notable on campus for the clothesline hung in front of Virginia Frese Hall on which are displayed white t-shirts with messages of perseverance and encouragement about a situation that is seldom spoke about.
The day features a silent march around the quad, with participants holding up signs and banners, outlining the importance of teaching everyone about domestic violence and what can be done to stop it.
“I’m here because domestic violence is a significant issue,” State Senator Stavisky said. Through hands-on-work, Stavisky pointed out how this issue is given the silent treatment within some communities.
“Domestic violence is an unspoken problem in the immigrant community,” Stavisky said.
“The man who I loved, built a home with, held a gun to my head,” is how Young started her story. She described how she was chased through the streets by her husband one cold winter day.
A survivor of domestic violence, Young is also the first Asian women elected to state office.
Even though “domestic violence is commonplace in today’s society” Young said, Young and her daughter survived this horrific moment in their lives. “We survived by getting help and getting out,” Young said.
Mirian Detres-Hickey, the director of the QC Office of Special Services, lighten the mood a little by poking fun at her physique.
“I know some of you probably think I would do the beating,” Hickey said with a laugh. A survivor of domestic violence, she lost her 5-month old fetus as a result of a beating from her husband.
“It goes across races, cultures, classes,” Hickey said, pointing out that is a problem that men suffer from, too.
Domestic violence for Hickey, and for so many others, was something she grew up around.
She recalls about the “great show” she would see as a little girl with her sister. Her sister would hoist her up on the window to see the neighbor across the street be chased out of her house by her husband.
She recalls thinking that the woman was being chased by her husband because she had been bad. She was not fulfilling her duties as wife. Gasps could be heard as Hickey told her story.
Carmella Marrone, Executive Director of the QC group Women and Work specified just how serious domestic violence is in America.
“The Center for Disease Control says domestic violence is an epidemic in America,” Marrone said.
“It’s important to remember that this is their transition from victim to survivor,” Marrone said about the domestic violence sufferers.
The statistics about domestic violence are more than enough proof to call it an epidemic.
Besides being the frequent cause of direct injury to women in America, only one-third of these crimes are reported. Thirty to 40 percent of the women who have been battered were pregnant. Seventy-six percent of these female victims have been stalked by their killer.
In 2007, 229,354 domestic violence incidents were reported by the New York Police Department; an average of about 600 per day. Based on the above statistics, this number is very alarming when considering that this is not even half of the actual incidents that took place last year.
Marrone encouraged everyone to get involved in trying to fight this national problem. “Abusers are one-half of this complexity. Please don’t let your concern about this go unheard, turn interest into activism,” she pleaded.
If the passing of napkins and the sight of tears was not enough to grab their attention, then the last speaker at the event did.
One speaker, only named Hope by her request, told her story which brought the room to tears.
“My father’s abuse worsened during my teen years,” she said.
Growing up, Hope found it hard from the beginning as more attention was given to her older brother. Years of neglect and physical and emotional abuse from her father finally reached a climax when she moved out at the age of 18.
She found a job and paid for her own education, eventually meeting her husband. Just as it seemed life was getting better, it got worse.
Her husband isolated her from others. At a party celebrating her first pregnancy, her husband got drunk, hit her and broke her nose. In another incident, he hit her with a fire extinguisher and continually kicked her.
Eventually, Hope knew that enough was enough and she moved to New York. A friend took her in until she could settle herself to her new surroundings.
At first, “I was shocked, I wasn’t sure if it was really happening,” her friend recalls. Later on, it became clear that Hope “was a fantastic woman, very friendly and I could not see her suffer in this manner,” the friend added.
Again her past came back to haunt her. She was attacked by two men one evening, leaving a huge cut on her face and bruises from being hit by a bat.
This attack was so brutal it left Hope with a disfigured face. At this point in her story, some of the attendees broke into tears and many were heard sobbing as she spoke. Hope too was very choked up as she recalled the ordeal.
With the help of her friend, she found a surgeon that would repair her face free of charge.
However, “emotional scars will be there forever,” she said.