News Article

Educating dads may help protect babies from abuse

USA TODAY, July 27, 2009

More than 2,400 children under 2 were murdered in the USA from 2001 to 2005, almost twice the number killed in car accidents, the study says. Children this age account for about half of all homicides of children under 14. The murder rate for babies this age — 6 per 100,000 children — is 10 times higher than the rate for children 7 to 8 years old, and even higher than the rate for 15- and 16-year-olds, the study says.  More

Opinion

Femicide: There's not enough outrage

Toronto Star, August 12, 2009

"There's not enough outrage," lamented one women's rights activist at a candlelight vigil for the three women cut down last Tuesday night in a Pittsburgh-area aerobics class.

As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted, only 75 people showed up to mourn Heidi Overmier, 46, Elizabeth Gannon, 49, and Jody Billingsley, 38, massacred by a man, who didn't know them, simply because they were women.

That's unusual as the vast majority of femicide victims are killed by their intimate partners or male relatives.  More

Opinion

Opinion

Shakesville Blog, August 20, 2009

From whom are the world's women being saved? From themselves? From just the women and girls in the developing world? Or are those the only women and girls who need saving? Everything's peachy in the developed world, is it? And then there is this: Can the lives of women and girls, anywhere, be changed if the lives and men and boys aren't changed, too?  More

News Article

Behind the murder-suicides

St. Petersburg Times, April 29, 2009

The Violence and Injury Prevention Program at the University of South Florida has been conducting research on murder-suicides, also called homicide-suicides, since 1994. We know that roughly 50,000 Americans die from homicide and suicide every year, and 1,500-2,500 are murder-suicide deaths. The perpetrator is usually a man who kills one or more people, usually a woman  More

Opinion

Women at Risk

The New York Times, August 7, 2009

We’ve seen this tragic ritual so often that it has the feel of a formula. A guy is filled with a seething rage toward women and has easy access to guns. The result: mass slaughter.
We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected.  More

News Article

Darfur in Mississippi

Clarion Ledger, March 10, 2009

Women living in emergency trailer parks in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina were three times more likely to become victims of domestic or sexual violence than they were prior to the storm, according to a new study published by the American Medical Association.  More

Report

Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Affect Everyone’s Kids in the Classroom

The New York Times, July 31, 2008

Kids exposed to domestic violence definitely do have lower reading and math scores and greater disciplinary problems. But the effects of this dysfunction are not limited to the direct victims of this violence: kids exposed to kids exposed to domestic violence also have lower test scores and more disciplinary infractions.   More

Press Release

Vice President Biden Announces Appointment of White House Advisor on Violence Against Women

June 26, 2009

Vice President Biden announced the appointment of Lynn Rosenthal as the new White House Advisor on Violence Against Women. This is a newly created position, dedicated specifically to advising the President and Vice President on domestic violence and sexual assault issues. Ms. Rosenthal is one of the nation’s foremost experts in domestic violence policy.   More

News Article

2 Boys Found Dead: Mom Rips Family Court

Chicago Tribune, March 31, 2009

"I feel that the judicial system failed me," said Amy Leichtenberg, whose missing sons bodies were found Sunday near a Christmas tree farm. "I pray that the courts listen to the warnings from other parents like me." Leichtenberg detailed her estranged husband's threats against her family and how she fought unsuccessfully to keep him from having unsupervised visits with their two sons.  More

News Article

Native Woman Wins Unprecedented Case

The Argus Leader, April 30, 2009

A Native American woman from Wounded Knee won a historic ruling in federal court based on a century-old treaty between the U.S. government and the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The U.S. government must pay Lavetta Elk $600,000 in damages after she was sexually assaulted by an Army recruiter. The ruling is based the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty that "provides that if 'bad men' among the whites commit 'any wrong' upon the person or property of any Sioux, the United States will reimburse the injured person for the loss sustained."  More