This Sickens Me

Welcome to my blog. You'll be reading a lot of my rants. Mostly, they are political. Sometimes, they are personal. Tonight, it will be personal.

I spent a lot of my life dealing with Domestic Violence first hand. Emotional and Physical abuse were present in my household, so working with DV victims was a very logical step in my life. Despite the internal failings and politics of the organization I worked for, I loved what I did. I did not, however, love it when women would come in beaten beyond recognition or with a story that their children were still with their abuser for some reason or another. It always made me nervous when a woman would come in and tell me that her abuser had custody of her child/children. I figured that if a man was abusive to the woman in his life, what reason would he have not to be abusive towards the children? Today was one of those days that affirmed my concerns. The abuser of one of the women I knew from shelter killed her son (that he had custody of) and then tried to kill himself. His sister found him with self inflicted stab wounds, and he was taken to the hospital. He is expected to make a full recovery.

I felt physically ill. How could a man do this to his child? Then I realized that he had already been violent towards the child's mother, which meant that he was also likely to be violent towards his child. We need to protect these children! We need to protect these women! We need to hold these men accountable for their actions! The systems that we have in place in this state are simply not enough. There isn't enough shelter space open, there aren't enough cops to arrest these men and there aren't enough judges to compassionately hear these cases and give victims and their children the justice that they both need and deserve.

The programs that we do have in place, as menial as they might be, are facing major changes in the next few years. Due to budget shortfalls and a general lack of caring from the state legislature, women will be forced into the streets if they cannot find shelter and abusers will remain free to continue to terrorize women and children. This isn't right, and something needs to be done.

We need to help those who cannot help themselves. We need to come up with viable solutions for these women and children. We need to do something, anything.