Today, Feb. 5, Chicago Foundation for Women and a coalition of local anti-violence organizations held a press conference to address recent headlines and call for stronger leadership on violence prevention and services.
Participating organizations were Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women's Network, Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Rape Victim Advocates, Voices and Faces Project and YWCA Metropolitan Chicago.
Here are highlights from the remarks:
Kelly White, Executive Director of Chicago Foundation for Women:
"As a survivor of domestic violence myself and an advocate for women and girls I think it's important for people to understand that fundamentally domestic violence is about power and control in relationships.
"Domestic violence is not about having a bad day, or going through a rough patch in your life. Domestic violence is not about falling in with the wrong crowd or taking a bad drug. Those are excuses and platitudes that we've heard too many times and we shouldn't accept in our families, from our neighbors or certainly not from public officials."
Samir Goswami, Policy Director of Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation:
"In the 2010 Illinois budget, funding for domestic violence programs was cut by 9 percent, funding for sexual assault programs was cut by 19 percent, and no funding was provided for preventing abused children from being further victimized by pimps and traffickers. Each percentage point of funding that is cut means:
hundreds of women will not be able to flee abusive partners because they have nowhere to go;
hundreds of victims of rape will not be helped and thus their rapists not prosecuted and taken off the streets, and
more children will have to suffer and endure child abuse.
"A state's priorities are reflected in its budgets. These are not the actions of a state that prioritizes addressing violence against women in any meaningful way. But how did we get herehow did we get to a point where an issue that affects one in four women in Illinois gets such little investment? Because we willfully ignore the many, many stories about abusive men that stare at us in the face every day."
Sharmili Majmudar, Executive Director of Rape Victim Advocates
"Not long ago, one of Rape Victim Advocates' staff was doing a public education presentation at a local school. And during the presentation, the teacher in the classroom became visibly distressed. She was being repeatedly raped by her husband, she revealed outside the classroom, and she was convinced that there was nothing she could do, that no one would believe her. Her husband treated her like the violence he inflicted was something she had to endure because they were married. What she wanted, what she felt, didn't matter.
"Just to be clear: it is illegal for a man to rape his wife. But spousal rape is rarely successfully prosecuted, and we rarely talk about it. Rather, we pretend that rape is just something that happens to young women in dark alleys who haven't followed the 'good girl' checklist. The reality is that upwards of 66-80 percent of rape is committed by someone the victim knowsa neighbor, a boyfriend, a partnerand yes, even a husband."
FROM A NEWS RELEASE