Domestic Violence

I often volunteer my time with a Non-Profit organization in Indianapolis, Indiana, named Coburn Place (www.coburnplace.org). Coburn is unique, because it offers transitional housing facility to women and children, who have been victims of domestic abuse. Coburn not only provides a safe haven, but also nurtures the families that have been deeply hurt and traumatized, and teaches them life skills. 

What has surprised me very much, is that domestic violence is not limited to any particular race, economic status, economic or education level. I would have believed the first categories easily, but I would not have guessed that domestic violence exists even amongst the educated class. I was quite stunned to learn that one of the current residents went to Columbia University, and that one of the past residents was a physician.

I also learnt that domestic violence is not always physical- It can be verbal or emotional. I heard a story of a man who had broken his female partner's nose during a heated argument. During subsequent arguments, he never touched her again, just touched his nose, as  a gesture of possible consequences, in the event of further argument.

An abuser often maintains his emotional/financial/physical stronghold over the abused, and very few women are able to break out of abusive relationships on time. They keep enduring hardships, often out of concern for their children, and at other times with the hope that "things will work out".  

In "A Thousand Splendid Suns", a novel based in Afghanistan, Khaled Hosseini has written the story of the most horrific physical and mental abuse of the main characters, Miriam and Laila, by their husband, Rasheed. They have nowhere to go, no place to seek help, absolutely no support system, and therefore no option but to endure the severe abuse, day after day, year after year. I am grateful that places like Coburn exist in the United States, and that women who have lost valuable times in their lives to barbaric inhumanity, get another chance, another opportunity to pick up their lives and move on.