For example, it is well recognized that a batterer can be prosecuted for violating a Family Court restraining order. Yet, according to a statewide database, in some counties up to 50 percent of these orders have never been served by law enforcement, leaving these batterers unaware that there are restraining orders against them. Even when served, these orders may be of little use; in all too many counties throughout the state such orders are rarely enforced. This lack of enforcement suggests that local law enforcement agencies do not take restraining orders seriously, and it provides little incentive for women to reach out to law enforcement agencies for assistance. Immigrant women face additional obstacles in accessing victim services or adequate assistance from authorities because of language and cultural barriers.
Preventive programs and services
Throughout the Tour, women and girls underscored the need for programs designed to prevent interpersonal and family violence and sexual assault. They highlighted the need for programs to begin in elementary school, when children are just beginning to learn about gender roles. Further, they emphasized the need to teach adolescents that domestic and sexual violence is not a women’s issue, but a societal problem that has grown out of a devaluation of girls and women alongside the distorted belief that it is acceptable for men to exert power and control over others.
Participants also recognized that this education cannot be addressed solely to women and stressed the need for such programs to involve adolescent boys and men. While Tour participants recognized that violence occurs in every social stratum, they identified a particular need for programs that explore the connections between family violence and poverty, unemployment, mental health and alcohol and substance abuse.
In the 1970s, the second wave of the US women’s movement began to transform domestic violence from a private issue cloaked in shame into a pressing public health concern. At that time, there was no hotline for a woman to call, no shelter in which to seek safety, no laws that would protect a woman from her partner’s rage.
