Womens Legal Resource

Maria – Thank you for providing such a thoughtful resource for domestic violence survivors and their supporters through your blog. I am heartened by the movement you have created on behalf of victims in New York and worldwide.

Your post Forgotten Battered Women Awareness Month from Saturday was honest and thought-provoking. I did want to explain the reason that you were not given the location or any contact information for one of our shelters when you called our hotline. Our shelter locations are confidential to protect the lives of the women and children who find refuge there. In fact, we do not even give a woman who is coming to stay in one of our shelters the address: We ask her to meet us at a landmark in the area, often a police precinct, where one of our counselors will meet her and take her to the confidential location after ensuring that she has not been followed by her abuser. Once she is there, we ask her not to tell anyone where she is living for the length of her stay–not her parents, other family members, friends, or coworkers.

All of our residents are in fear of their lives, and for most of them, only one thing is keeping them safe: the fact that their abusers do not know where to find them. If you had been in immediate danger, our advocate would have connected you to 911 right away. If you were not in immediate danger but needed help, our advocate would have helped you decide if shelter was the safest place for you and would have determined if space was available for you and your children. To protect the lives of those in our care, however, our advocates can never release information that might reveal how to contact one of our confidential shelters. Most organizations offering shelter to domestic violence survivors do the same. Perhaps you could share this information with your readers, in case they wish to obtain this information in the future?

On another note, thanks to your feedback, we are deleting every mention of an email address on our website that a victim might think to use to contact us for services. We try to encourage victims to dial 911 if they are in immediate danger or call our hotline if they need our help, not send an email. I will ensure that this is clearly stated everywhere on our website.

Thank you for raising such valid concerns. More importantly, thank you for shining light on issues of violence and abuse. I look forward to following your posts for the remainder of the month and beyond!

Onika Abraham
Vice President, Marketing and Communications
Safe Horizon
2 Lafayette Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10007
T 212.577.4385 C 646.341.3125 F 212.385.0331
www.safehorizon.org

moving victims of violence from crisis to confidence

I need to say a few things here. Although I appreciate the kind words, the compliments, the “innovative” ideas to change the website…

I have to say, I think this is a horrible idea. I am not a paid advocate, in fact, I don’t even call myself an advocate, although I do help DV victims fight back and get what they deserve from shelters and organizations that turn them away. But, if any DV organization thinks it’s a “good” idea to eliminate any forms of communication, someone needs to speak out. It will be me. For many, many victims who are in constant danger, sometimes all they can do is email (whether it be through a computer or phone). Dialing 911 at the drop of a hat is not an option for many victims, some never dial 911 at all (not that I encourage that, but it is the truth). Many can’t use the telephone–for reasons a DV shelter should be aware of. Therefore, I think Safe Horizon should think of a better way to “help” DV victims, and for the record, I am a person that likes to keep a paper trail of the people that do not respond to me, and so do many others in my situation. If Safe Horizon eliminates contact through email, victims should get a tape recorder and keep track of these conversations that way.

The last thing a DV organization should do is eliminate communication lines. I now believe that many more victims will fall through the cracks. Thank you, Safe Horizon…your intentions may be good but your ideas are backward.