More than 100 indiginous people are missing in Washington State; other states are also plagued with high numbers. The Washington State Patrol has created a task force specifically to help locate and get answers to the epidemic of missing men and women.More than 100 indiginous people are missing in Washington State; other states are also plagued wit…

Women make up 51% of the US population, yet only 31% of elected officials are women. So why the disparity? Well, as any woman who has run for office can tell you, there are a number of barriers and obstacles standing in the way for women who throw their hats in the ring. Money, support, personal obligations, campaigning, exposure...the list goes on…

TEN MEN: A RHODE ISLAND ENGAGEMENT GROUP The domestic violence movement has grown and changed over the last 30 years, and perhaps one of the more interesting developments over that time, has been the efforts to engage men in the fight against the violence. The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RIADV) has found one way to encourage t…

WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH PERPETRATOR TREATMENT? After a domestic violence arrest, perpetrators are often ordered into treatment by the courts. Treatment? That implies there is a cure. Or does it? Turns out treatment is not the panacea we would hope it is, but it may do some good. The discussion around the effectiveness of intimate partner abuser treat…

HOW ONE POLICE DEPARTMENT RESPONDS TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE You’ve seen it on the news, perhaps heard of friends or even experienced it yourself – the domestic incident call to police. We know bits and pieces, but chances are, unless you’ve experienced it personally, you don’t really know what happens after that call. What happens when police arrive? I…

COERCIVE CONTROL: NO BROKEN BONES BUT VIOLENCE, NEVERTHELESS Isolation, entrapment, stalking, mind games, withholding, degrading…all are the strategies and the weapons of the perpetrator in debilitating and controlling relationships. The coercive control the abuser uses can create as much damage and victimization as the physical assaults often expe…

MURDER CHARGES AFTER A STILL BIRTH: A FIGHT ON BEHALF OF WOMEN How terrible to deliver a still born, full term baby. Imagine the grief. Now imagine that immediately after, police arrest you and you spend the next 15 months jailed and charged with murder of that child. That is what happened to a California woman, and she isn’t the first who has been…

When a victime has to leave a domestic violence situation, that departure is often hindered because of abusers' threats to animals, or because the victim doesn't want to leave pets behind. It's a real problem. But one organization, Redrover, is working with that problem and creating safe solutions all across the US and Canada. Nicole Forsyth is Pre…

SEXUAL ASSAULT ADVOCACY AND EDUCATION OVER DECADES COVID is causing upswings in domestic violence and sexual assault. True or false? How has the response to sexual assault changed? How do we view prevention and what does that mean today? Mary Ellen Stone, Executive Director who has headed Washington State’s King County Sexual Assault Resource Cente…

The horror stories about domestic violence, divorce, child custody and the too- often devastating decisions handed down in family court abound. This week's show features a retired judge who advocates and teaches about how abusers use the court system, and many of his insignts and experiences shed some light on what happens in courts when abusers us…

Human trafficking is a problem affecting women and girls throughout the world, but it is a woman right here in the United States who shares her experiences, her trauma and, significantly, her recovery. Siobhan Bennett has been CEO of a national political advancement organization, is the former head of a Washington DC organization working to get wom…

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FROM A POLICE PERSPECTIVE We hear from lawyers, judges, victims, advocates and even ministers about domestic violence, but how often do we hear from police officers about their understanding of domestic violence, it's perpetrators and victims, and its prosecution? Lt. Mark Wynn (ret), a former police officer and member of a SWAT t…

ABUSED MOTHERS AND CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES It is no surprise that children suffer in intimate partner abuse situations. Neither is it a surprise that some of those children are taken into care by child protective services. One group of researchers decided to take a look at the mothers in some of these situations and compare those who had children…

CYBER VIOLENCE: MANY WAYS, MANY MOTIVES We have all heard of cyber bullying, but that is just one way trolls, misogynists, criminals and crazies can use the internet to target, harass, threaten, shame and terrorize their unfortunate victims. Who are the perpetrators and who do they target? What are the negative effects of these assaults? And what a…

VICTIMS’ ADVOCATES: WHO, WHERE AND WHAT? Relatively unnoticed by the general population during the pandemic news and focus was the April observation of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week. Among those who paid attention to the event were crime victim advocates, especially Anne Seymour, an advocate for 36 years. So what does a crime victim advocate …

“SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH HER” IS A RED FLAG FOR BRAIN DAMAGE Those who work with intimate partner violence victims know how frequently strangulation shows up as an issue. What has not been as well known is how often that strangulation results in long-term brain damage. A recent study by researchers at Ohio State University revealed the prevalence o…

A SURVIVOR, A MOTHER, AND A WOMEN’S COALITION Cindy Dumas and her son Damon went through hell when Damon was court ordered into the custody of his father who was sexually abusing him. After fighting for years, Damon finally was able to gain his emancipation at age 16. But that didn’t end the fight for either Cindy or Damon. They have continued the …

WHAT’S A SHELTER TO DO? HELPING DURING A HEALTH CRISIS Everyone is inconvenienced by the restrictions due to the COVID-19 situation but there’s inconvenience and then there’s danger. When abuse is already there, confinement with an abuser escalates all danger and trauma. DC Safe, a Washington, DC service for abuse victims, has had to ratchet up sup…

GENDERED VIOLENCE IN THE TIME OF PANDEMIC Intimate partner violence and abuse are bad enough but made so much worse by the world-wide pandemic and the restrictions everyone faces now. What is going on and how are we coping? Seattle’s Susan Segall, director of New Beginnings, a multi-service organization dedicated to helping survivors, explains what…

UC DENVER’S PROGRAM ON GENDERED VIOLENCE Once upon a time, a small group of women had a vision about how to change the world to make women safe from domestic violence so they got a grant and they set about convincing a university that such a course of study was worthy and necessary. It wasn’t easy, but they did it. And this year the program that de…

REFORMING FAMILY COURTS There are too many stories about dangerous and ridiculous custody determinations that occur in America’s family courts. From children who are sent to live with abusers to children who are killed because the courts determine their killer should not be kept from seeing the child—the stories abound. So what are we doing about i…

KAYDEN’S LAW: EFFORTS TO STOP CUSTODY DECISION DEATHS Seven-year-old Kayden died at her father’s hands because a judge disregarded the father’s threats of violence against her mother. As is the case too many times, the justice system failed this child because the judge created a false equivalency between parents, one of whom was violent. And Kayden…

DOES THE U.S. JUSTICE SYSTEM FAVOR OF RAPISTS? According to a recent article being widely circulated on the internet, all signs point to the US response to sexual abuse as being dramatically leaning in favor of sex offenders. That is according to Barry Goldstein, advocate, author, and champion of fighting gender bias in the courts. Goldstein report…

US Response to Sexual AbuseAv 3 Women 3 Ways

CALIFORNIA PROTECTIVE PARENTS ASSOCIATION: EDUCATING AND ADVOCATING FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES What started as a park bench conversation about protective parents losing their children to abusers in family courts has evolved into an organization that is making nationally renowned progress in working to eliminate the problem. Catherine Campbell is the…

SAFE AND TOGETHER INSTITUTE: The intersection of domestic violence and child maltreatment is easy to see for anyone who works with families, yet often judges or child protective services seem to ignore the connections. But not the Safe and Together Institute. The organization is dedicated to educating agencies about the creating domestic-violence i…

GUNS AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE: THE FACTS A million women alive today have been shot or shot at in intimate partner violence situations. Gun ownership, gun rights, gun violence…all are different when we are talking domestic violence. Rachel Graber, Director of Public Policy for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, shares the statis…

When a mother flees her homeland for another country trying to escape abuse and ensure safety, the journey is not easy. Amid the pain of escaping home, friends, family and hopefully, danger, is the fear of the unknown, the uncertainty of the future, and in many cases, the discovery and further victimization the mother was trying to get away from. I…

COERCIVE CONTROL: ONE WOMAN’S JOURNEY We hear the term “coercive control” but how many of us really understand what it means? How pervasive is it? How damaging is it to the victims? Min Grob is a resident of Bristol, England, and she not only lived with coercive control, she also came to understand it, escape it, and develop programs to educate abo…

ABUSIVE DADS: HOW THEY PERCEIVE THEIR FATHERING When we talk about abusive dads, we talk about them in relation to how they treat their partners, how they make excuses, how the courts treat them. Rarely do we talk about how they actually perceive themselves as fathers. Turns out there are some real twists there. Henning Mohaupt, clinical psychologi…

GENDER AND THE LAW Do you think of women and law only when it comes to family law, reproductive rights, domestic violence and employment? Most folks always have thought that these are the only areas of law of particular interest to women. But Katherine Bartlett, professor of law at Duke, thinks otherwise. She says that genderedness affects all area…

JUDGE ORDERS BOY INTO FATHER'S CUSTODY DESPITE "PENIS GAMES" If you were the one making the decision, would you order a small boy who told authorities that daddy played the “penis game” with him, and who then went on to sexually act out with is playmates and school friends, to live with his abuser? Because it happens a lot. And in the case of Suzan…

CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT, ONE IDIOT FAMILY, AND ONE WOMAN WHO TOLD THE TALE Kathy Picard was pleased when her step father started showing her some special attention – until that attention became twisted and threatening. She lived with a nightmare with no help from the family members she told, no relief from the burden of what was happening to her. Even…

Guns are evil and should be heavily controlled. US citizens have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Young people’s greatest fears right now are school shootings. No one needs a gun. Domestic violence perpetrators must have their guns confiscated for safety of the victims. All the arguments, all…

SAY SHE’S CRAZY AND WATCH THE COURTS IGNORE VIOLENCE AGAINST HER “She’s crazy, delusional, mentally ill (now that she’s divorcing me, but before she was just fine).” Funny how that seems to be the song abusers, judges, psychologists and other experts sing in divorce and custody battles. What’s with the gendered language, the pop psychology and, yes…

WHY DO PEOPLE BLAME THE VICTIM? We hear the expression. “blaming the victim,” but do we really know what that means? Or why we do it? Sherry Hamby, PhD, has made it her business to study victim blaming. Hamby is Director of the Life Paths Research Center and founder of ResilienceCon. She’s also a professor of Psychology at the University of the Sou…

A CRITIQUE OF CNN COVERAGE OF FAMILY COURT What’s worse than judges and guardians ad litem who don’t understand domestic violence and child custody? How about a major national media reporter who purports to cover custody and abuse issues without ever doing an investigation into both sides of the issue? When CNN features a show about fathers and cus…

WORKPLACE PESTS: IDIOPATHIC MUTUAL IRRITANTS You probably know about those pesky people at work, but do you know about Idiopathic Mutual Irritation. Louise Penberthy does, and she can give advice to all of us on how to deal with both. Penberthy started mediating in 2002, and over the years since then, she's observed many things about people, their …

FAMILY COURT FROM A SUPREME COURT CANDIDATE’S VIEW So how do family courts work and why are they often such a mess? What constitutional issues do they raise? Who’s to blame when the system runs roughshod over the best interests of children? Who knows? Well, long-term attorney and candidate for the Louisiana Supreme Court Richard Ducote has a pretty…

THE TRUTHS ABOUT CUSTODY AND FATHERS’ RIGHTS What are the truths about child custody, fathers’ rights, and how did we get here? Guest Doreen Ludwig, author, advocate and researcher, focuses on the impact of federal fatherhood initiatives on custody determinations. Has the situation changed from past decades, and if so, how? And Why? And where did t…

AMBITIOUS OR TRAUMATIZED: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN OVERWORK AND PAST TRAUMA Experiencing trauma can lead to all sorts of negative consequences but did you realize that it might lead to work addiction? Research is sparse, but anecdotal evidence is there, and some therapists see a connection. Could a workaholic – someone who overworks to the detriment …

RESEARCH, GOEGRAPHY AND IPV Research is important, but so is perfecting research. Especially in the areas of Intimate Partner Violence. We usually see geographic differences (if addressed at all) as reflecting urban, suburban and rural areas. But two IPV researchers started seeing some problems with that and decided to get to the bottom of it. They…

ZEN TALK AND TRAUMA: DOES IT HELP? Is Buddhism a philosophy? A religion? A way of life? Well, yes and no. But the bigger question is, does it have anything to offer victims of traumatic life events? And if it’s supposed to be so peaceful and Zen, why is it called the Warrior’s Path? Guest Mark Winwood is a Buddhist teacher, student and practitioner…

RURAL WOMEN AND VIOLENCE Is there a difference between the violence women in urban areas suffer and the violence that rural women encounter? Well, in a nutshell, Yes. There is a difference. Rural women are victims more often, of more depth of violence, and with fewer resources and ways to get help. Emerging research, although sparse, shows that cou…

EXPERT WITNESSES: HOW BIAS AND UNRELIABILITY CAN AFFECT YOUR COURT CASE Anyone who watches TV, or goes through a custody battle, or knows someone who has tangled with the courts, knows what an expert witness is. Called forensic experts, they are the ones who tell the court the deep-seated truth about the parties, right? Well, turns out they disagre…

AMBITIOUS OR TRAUMATIZED: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN OVERWORK AND PAST TRAUMA Experiencing trauma can lead to all sorts of negative consequences but did you realize that it might lead to work addiction? Research is sparse, but anecdotal evidence is there, and some therapists see a connection. Could a workaholic – someone who overworks to the detriment …

HOPE: WHAT IS IT AND HOW DO YOU MEASURE IT? If you hope the weather is better tomorrow, is it really hope? Or is it wishful thinking? What really makes hope what it is, and what makes up hope? Casey Gwinn, former long term prosecutor and founder of Camp HOPE America, and advocate, speaker and educator for victims of violence, particularly domestic …