Part 1 of 6 part series called The Supporters Gap
Written by April Tribe Giauque
87,000 Preventable Deaths Happened in One Location!
Let’s start with home after all this is something we are all familiar with.
Home. H- O- M- E.
H- hearts, hands, happiness are
O- Open and filled with love to accept
M- More forgiveness, more kindness, and more joy! This
E- Empowers, enlightens, keeps us eternally safe.
Home. What do you think of that word? After reading that little poem did you feel that it accurately described the place you live or that you grew up in? Was it filled with love and warmth? For many this is accurate, but for 87,000 women, it is not.
Let’s try again. Home. Do you feel a sense of fear or love? Do you feel joy or pain? Do you feel safety or terror and danger? If these questions are making you squirm or feel uncomfortable, then good. I’ve struck a nerve.
Can you answer this question: What is the most dangerous place for a woman? I’ll give you a hint. It is the four-letter word you have been reading about. The most dangerous place for a woman is their home. Why? Here are a few reasons why the home can be the most dangerous place for women:
Slip and falls
Fire and burns
Poison
Statistically, these are the most common injuries can result in injury or death. This is tragic, but there is even a more frightening killer of women in the home. The number one reason the home is the most dangerous place is that more women are killed at home by someone they know.
Women are killed in their own homes then anywhere else. According to the UN report from 2018, 87,000 women were murdered by violent means within the walls of their own homes. These deaths are 100% PREVENTABLE unlike a disease, a natural disaster, or even being murdered by a stranger.
I repeat again the number one preventable killer of Women in the world is Intimate Partner Violence or Domestic Violence.
According to the latest UN report: “More than half of all female murder victims in 2017 were killed by an intimate partner or family member, according to a new study published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. A total of around 87,000 women were killed by homicide worldwide last year, and about 50,000 of them, or 58 percent, were killed by someone close to them. That’s an average of six women every hour.”
When we look at overall homicide victims in the world. The majority of overall homicide victims who are killed by strangers in the world are men. However, women are far more likely to die at the hands of someone they know than a stranger. Women make up 82% of the people killed by intimate partners IPV or Domestic Violence.
According to Secretary-General is António Guterres of Portugal he states: “At its core, violence against women and girls is the manifestation of a profound lack of respect ― a failure by men to recognize the inherent equality and dignity of women. It is an issue of fundamental human rights.”
1 in 4 women are abused in the United States. With one in four women being abused, it happens over 78% of the time within the walls of their own homes. Over time, emotional, mental, spiritual, financial, and physical abuse will take its toll on the victim. The abuse will range from a severe injury to mental illness to death that will occur and the majority of this happens at home.
How many of you at this point in reading the article is shocked? How many of you think, “yes this is tragic, but I really don’t know of anyone who is in abuse. I agree that abuse is awful and that it is terrible. But again, I really don’t know who to help or how to help others.”
This is what I identify as the Supporter’s Gap. There is a gap between wanting to help someone and having the tools to know how to help them. This article is one in the six-part series that will bring you the first step in your AWARENESS of how many women are murdered in their own home in Domestic Violence (DV) and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).
This awareness is the first step in closing the Supporter’s Gap and get the tools to narrow the gap even smaller. For more information and stories on how to understand what happens in abuse check out my personal story of Pinpoints of Light: Escaping the Abyss of Abuse. I fit perfectly in the statistic of all the violence happening within the walls of my own home. I nearly lost my life there. Pinpoints of Light is a real-life Sleeping with the Enemy meets Rainman meets A Beautiful Mind story.
In fact, this story will be hitting the silver screen to help save the lives of millions of women who are trapped in abusive marriages. Pinpoints of Light promotes two main themes:
1) That there is true hope for abused women can make an exit plan and become free from abuse. We most stop 87,000 women from being murdered within the walls of their own homes. And
2) it opens up the hard conversation about abuse: how abuse literally bleeds onto and impacts the world’s society.
I purposefully wrote my book to read cinematically so that readers feel the suffocating drowning of abuse, find a way to become a supporter of the victim. If supporters need encouragement to know how to help someone, you will meet Gloria a real-life supporter that save me and my five children. Six lives were saved from being murdered in that home. As a victim, I found the ultimate hope as Pinpoints of Light led me to supporters who helped me become the ultimate victor.
Get your reduced price copy of Pinpoints of Light: Escaping the Abyss of Abuse here
Join us for Part two of the six-part blog series called “the Supporter’s Gap.”
****https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-n-report-spotlights-n940191
***https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-home-front/2009/08/31/the-top-5-causes-of-accidental-home-injury-deathsand-how-to-prevent-them
****https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-n-report-spotlights-n940191