By Edwin Diaz
“I see it first hand when I have women come to the gym physically with bruises in their faces seeking help and that’s devastating,” said Johanna Edmondson, director of the Female Fight Club. “I let them get everything out of their chest, share their story with no judgments and then we go from there.”
Domestic violence against women has been escalating over the past five years in the Bronx. Treating and reducing it requires resources to educate women and give them the power to take action. Lehman College will soon be providing more of those resources to students through a recent grant from the Department of Justice.
“When a person is in a domestic violence situation, their power is taken from them, they feel powerless,” said Ashmini Hiralall, director of Health and Wellness Services at Lehman College who is scaling up a program to stop DV. It is really important that we teach women how to take back their power, how to really advocate for themselves and how to be safe.”
Domestic violence and abuse can be physical, verbal, sexual, financial and digital. They are usually committed by a family member or by an intimate partner. In NYC, Black and Hispanic women are the two groups most affected by this issue. From 2014 through 2023 there were 564 domestic violence homicides in New York City.
Since the pandemic in 2020, domestic violence cases in the U.S increased by 8.1% according to the Council on Criminal Justice Institutions. In 2020, people were forced to stay at home because of safety reasons. However not everyone was safe in their houses because some women were forced to share a space with an abuser. “The need for isolated conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic created environments that intensified the risk and impact of domestic violence,” said Dondi Leonidas Quintans, director of Marketing & Communications at the Urban Resource Institute. “Lockdowns and stay at home orders meant that survivors were often trapped with their abusers, isolated from support networks and unable to access resources in person.”
The Bronx is the borough in New York City with the highest rates of domestic violence, with neighborhoods such as Mott Haven, Hunts Points, Highbridge, Fordham and Melrose having the highest rates in the borough. “Domestic violence rates in the Bronx are influenced by a complex intersection of socioeconomic and systemic factors,” said Quintans. “The Bronx faces some of the highest poverty rates in New York City, limited access to affordable housing and disparities in healthcare and mental health services. All of these factors contribute to creating environments where abuse is more likely to occur and less likely to be reported.”
Edmondson also emphasized that one primary cause of domestic violence is generational trauma that many abusers encounter during their childhood. “The contributors to domestic violence can be alcohol, can be drugs, can be mental health, can be also you were abused and they abused you when you were little, so now you are abusing others. So there are many factors that can come across about why you are now an abuser.”
“To be clear, incidents of domestic violence are shaped over generations” said Quintans. “In studies done by our team, we found that the vast majority of individuals who commit harm in relationships reported adverse childhood experiences in their youth. Intimate partner violence is shaped over years of trauma for both individuals who commit harm and survivors.
Despite the recent increase there haven’t been enough contributions to actually help women escape from their abusers.
“I notice that a lot of women that have been attacked and have been abused they tend to stay quiet, they tend not to report the abuser because they are just afraid that they might get killed,” said Edmondson. “We see so many cases of women that day in and day out are abused by men. Or women and they don’t say anything and it ends up that they find them dead.”
People don’t have the support needed to address abuse in a holistic way,” said Hiralall. “Or they just don’t have the tools and knowledge. I think there are resources that are available, I think the issue is the access to the resource. Connecting women and children and vulnerable individuals to the resources.”
In 2021 Hiralall created a series called “Together as one: Critical Conversations on Healthy Relationships” at the office of Health and Wellness at Lehman College. It is a six-week workshop the office hosts every fall and spring whose goal is to teach students how to talk about healthy relationships and how to recognize the signs of an unhealthy relationship.
“We actually recently received a federal grant from the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Violence Against Women to hire a full time prevention coordinator whose is going to be responsible for coordinating a larger scale campus effort around domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stocking,” said Hiralall. “It allows us to bring on a new staff member whose full time job is gonna be focused on this issue. Creating educational opportunities, designing a prevention program, creating community partners, to really bring these resources to our students.”
Another resource for DV survivors is the Female Fight Club, a non-profit organization that helps women who are victims of domestic violence. “We definitely go beyond,” said Edmondson. “We served women not only in the Bronx but Manhattan, Brooklyn, New Jersey, Yonkers. We have workshops, women health panels.
We have hikes, nutrition classes, self defense classes, journalism classes, yoga classes, and tons of fitness classes to really feel and invest in women ‘s health.”
The Club connects women with local organizations that assists them in getting away from their abusers. They partner with the Bronx borough president who is a big advocate of supporting women who face domestic violence. They partner with an organization called My Sister Place and they connect women with the Community Affairs Officers. She describes how these platforms have more resources available. They can provide victims with lawyers, state housing, financial support and counseling.
The largest provider of domestic violence shelter services in the U.S. is the non-profit Urban Resources Institute. “URI domestic violence services are designed to meet survivors where they are, offering emergency shelter services, transitional housing and long term support through individualized plans,” said Quintans. “We provide wraparound services including crisis intervention, case management, therapy and assistance navigating legal, educational and employment pathways. URI programs are trauma-informed and survivor-centered, ensuring each client receives the support they need to rebuild their lives safely and sustainably.”
The URI works with women who often experience physical violence, as well as sexual violence, economic abuse, and digital abuse through monitoring and online harrassment. Quintans says they work with survivors age 18-34, but also acknowledges how women of all ages are affected by this issue.
“Domestic violence not only threatens women’s physical safety, it also impacts their mental health, financial independence and long term well being” said Quintans. “Without support, survivors may feel trapped, hopeless or forced to return to dangerous environments. Resources like safe housing, counseling, legal aid and the Economic Empowerment Program (EEP) provide survivors with the tools they need to break free from abuse and build a life rooted in safety, autonomy and dignity.”
“When we invest in women’s health we are investing in our future, in our children’s future, in our families,” she said. “We play a vital role in our families, women really covering the families together and we need that support to continue to be the caregivers that we want to continue to be.”
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