19 Apr, 2013
Perspective: Home is Where the Overwhelming Majority of Violence Occurs | Alternet
Domestic violence is the number one cause of injury to women. The incidents add up to more than all the rapes, muggings, and car accidents women experience each year. One out of every four women in the U.S. will be physically injured by a lover in her lifetime. That translates into a woman being assaulted every nine seconds in America. Immigrant women are beaten at higher rates than U.S. citizens, and African-American women are subjected to the most severe forms of violence. Not surprisingly, a shaky economy just makes these numbers worse.
And then there are the rapes. Over a lifetime, one out of every six American women is raped. For Native Americans, that number is one in three. For Native Alaskans, it can be up to 12 times the national rate.
And don’t forget the killings. Sixty-four percent of the women killed every year are murdered by family members or lovers. There are more than 1,000 homicides of that kind annually, or approximately three a day. If there’s a gun in a home where domestic abuse is a common thing, a woman is eight timesmore likely to be killed.
Faced with this grim pile of data, the American home begins to look less like a “castle” and more like a slaughterhouse.
Read the rest: Perspective: Home is Where the Overwhelming Majority of Violence Occurs | Alternet.
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