PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Teri Stoddard
Phone: 301-801-0608
Email: tstoddard@saveservices.org
Politicizing the Truth: White House Order Ignores the Plight of Most Victims of Violence
WASHINGTON / August 15, 2012 — Victim-advocacy group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) is charging the White House with politicizing the issue of violence. SAVE says Obama’s executive order “Preventing and Responding to Violence Against Women and Girls Globally”(1) marginalizes and ignores the suffering of male victims of violence.
According to the World Health Organization, men are twice as likely to die of violence as women. Globally, violence accounts for 14% of male deaths and 7% of female deaths.(2)
Regarding intimate partner violence, studies across the globe find women are as likely as men to be perpetrators of abuse.(3) In the United States, a Centers for Disease Control survey reported that among young adults, half of all partner aggression is mutual, and 71% of the instigators of nonreciprocal partner violence are female.(4)
Current criminal cases illustrate the gravity of the problem:
— Brenda White of Taylorsville, Utah is currently on trial for attempting to kill her husband with an SUV.(5)
— This past Saturday, Na Cola Darcel Franklin of Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania stabbed her fiancé to death just hours before their planned wedding.(6)
— Julie Elizabeth Harper of Carlsbad, California is being held on $2 million bail for fatally shooting her husband with their children nearby.(7)
“In the halls of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike agree the Violence Against Women Act must help all victims of violence.” says Philip W. Cook, SAVE spokesperson, “But the White House’s election-year Order politicizes the issue and distorts the truth. It’s divisive, it’s unfair, and it’s dishonest.”
Earlier this week the Belfast Telegraph reported on a “Dramatic Rise in Violence against Northern Ireland Men in the Home.”(8)
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments is a victim-advocacy organization working for evidence-based solutions to partner violence: www.saveservices.org
1. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/10/executive-order-preventing-and-responding-violence-against-women-and-gir
2. http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/world_report/en/introduction.pdf
3. http://www.saveservices.org/policymakers/what-is-the-profile-of-domestic-violence-around-the-world/
4. Whitaker DJ et al. Differences in frequency of violence and reported injury between relationships with reciprocal and nonreciprocal intimate partner violence. American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 97, No. 5, 2007.
5. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54649493-78/brenda-jon-defense-building.html.csp
6. http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-whitehall-wedding-day-murder-20120811,0,706030,full.story
7. http://www.10news.com/news/31354629/detail.html
8. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/dramatic-rise-in-violence-against-northern-ireland-men-in-the-home-16197462.html#ixzz23Uypn5HD