IT is great to see another grassroots community campaign gathering pace, especially one as important as this one, directed against family violence.
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And it’s encouraging to see local police, who so often are at the frontline of this terrible crime, get behind it as well.
It’s a pretty simple campaign, borrowing from the Reagan era Say No to Drugs push. Its message, Say No to Domestic Violence, is one that needs to get to every corner of the community.
Why? Because it’s a pernicious crime that leaves not just physical but emotional scars and robs its victims of their future. And because so many of its perpetrators are master manipulators, it often goes unreported. Victims are terrorised, beaten, isolated and controlled in a form of slavery we wouldn’t condone anywhere else but in our midst it too often goes unnoticed.
Left unchecked, family violence can result in the victim feeling totally trapped in a cycle of violence from which there is no escape. Throw children into that environment and the harm begins to cross generations. Kids exposed to family violence are at risk of all sorts of health and social problems. In extreme examples, they can mimic the violence when they grow up and form their own relationships.
We must ask ourselves whether we are doing enough to end family violence. The presence of posters is a small step towards making that a question on everyone’s lips. It also sends the message that it’s not OK to abuse, belittle, threaten, disrespect or physically harm family members. And it might just empower those trapped in abusive relationships to make that first important call to police.
Equipped with better tools to identify potential repeat offenders and to head off further intimidation, the police are in a strong position to put lives back on track and perhaps even save them.