Saturday, October 04, 2008

The abuse myth

Carey Roberts reports:
In the great majority of cases, women at abuse shelters have suffered no physical injury or harm.

A former worker at the YWCA Emergency Shelter in Enid, Okla. reveals, "In all the time that I volunteered there, I saw one woman who showed signs of physical abuse." Likewise, the former director of a mid-Atlantic shelter reports, "only about one in 10 women had experienced any kind of physical injury."

Recently, researchers at Florida State University interviewed persons residing at abuse shelters in the state. "Medical/health" needs were mentioned only 9% of the time, and these were mostly women who needed to catch up on overdue dental and medical checks.

And the Hawaii Department of Human Services reports only 8% of persons at shelters require emergency medical attention — and emergency care can include non-abuse related problems like getting an abscessed tooth removed.
Usually the main abuse is drug and alcohol abuse that they have done to themselves.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having watched my mother abused by her second husband, my sister abused by her first husband and a niece curently being beaten by her husbnd, I can tell you that while some allegations of abuse may indeed be false, abuse is not a myth. What's your solution? Keep it in the family?

George said...

If the woman is a victim of a crime, she can call the police. If she wants out of the marriage, then she can get a divorce.

Anonymous said...

"while some allegations of abuse may indeed be false, abuse is not a myth"

I don't think the article was denying abuse exists, only that the majority of abuse is false. It is very easy to generate allegations of abuse, my wife accused me of being abusive by controlling her through the use of money after coaching by her lawyer. Fortunately in my case, she came to her senses but it could have easily gone the other way. Physical abuse is very rare but one thing I do know, there are a lot of very violent women out there and the shame is, society as a rule can't seem to accept that.