The Family Resource Center will be holding a march and candle light vigil on St. John on Thursday to increase awareness about domestic violence.
The entire community is welcome to attend the two-hour event that begins at 5 p.m. at Frank Powell Park in Cruz Bay. The evening will include guest speakers and performances by the Dynamic Dancers and the Love City Pan Dragons.
Children and their parents are invited to attend a free art class at the St. John School of the Arts starting at 4:15 p.m. to create artwork that will be used during the event.
In spite of a decades-long national campaign to decrease the number of incidents involving domestic violence, the facts remain alarming. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline:
— Over 1 in 3 women (35.6 percent) and 1 in 4 men (28.5 percent) in the U.S. have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.”
— 30 to 60 percent of intimate partner violence perpetrators also abuse children in the household.
— 1 in 10 high school students has experienced physical violence from a dating partner in the past year.”
— One study found that children exposed to violence in the home were 15 times more likely to be physically and/or sexually assaulted than the national average.
Stigma still prevents survivors of domestic violence from seeking help, according to Annette Small, a counselor on St. John who works with the St. Thomas-based Family Resource Center.
“Overall, people still believe in taking care of their own problems,” she said. “They don’t want to report because of fear, financial instability, threats, and other factors. But those that seek counselling do benefit,” she said.
Those who do report crimes of domestic violence sometimes become frustrated with the time it takes for supporting agencies to process their complaints, she added.
Small said she has sent in a request to the Superior Court to get accurate statistics about the rate of domestic abuse in the community.
The roots of the problem are deep, Small said. “In some people’s minds, [abuse] is what ‘love’ looks like because that’s what they grew up with. They choose partners because that’s what their fathers were like. That’s why I like to start with the young. They can grow up with a different mindset.”
The Family Resource Center provides a variety of services, including counseling, shelters, programs for survivors and perpetrators of abuse, and court advocacy for victims of crimes.
Events to build awareness of domestic violence will be held on Thursday, Oct. 17 on St. Thomas, sponsored by the Family Resource Center, and on St. Croix by the Women’s Coalition.
For further information, call the Family Resource Center at 340-776-3966 or the National Hotline at 340-776-STOP (7867).
