October is Domestic
Violence Awareness Month
On average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape,
physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in the U.S., according to
The National Domestic Violence Hotline. That’s more than 12 million women and
men a year—roughly the entire population of Pennsylvania.
Sexual assault and physical violence victims reach across a
broad spectrum of individuals. We tend
to think of women but men may be victims too.
Older adults, persons with disabilities and children may be mistreated
by care givers or family members.
Another form of domestic violence is stalking, a pattern of
repeated and unwanted attention, harassment, contact, or any other course of
conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to
feel fear. One in six women and one in 19 men have been stalked during their
lifetime.
According to the Stalking Resource Center, National Center
for Victims of Crime, stalking can include:
•
Repeated, unwanted, intrusive, and frightening
communications from the perpetrator by phone, mail, and/or email.
• Repeatedly
leaving or sending victim unwanted items, presents, or flowers.
• Following or laying in wait for the
victim at places such as home, school, work, or recreation place.
• Making direct or indirect threats
to harm the victim, the victim's children, relatives, friends, or pets.
• Damaging
or threatening to damage the victim's property.
• Harassing
victim through the internet.
• Posting information or spreading
rumors about the victim on the internet, in a public place, or by word of
mouth.
• Obtaining personal information
about the victim by accessing public records, using internet search services,
hiring private investigators, going through the victim's garbage, following the
victim, contacting victim's friends, family work, or neighbors.
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