Advocates Mark October As Domestic Violence Awareness Month

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October is designated as Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and agencies across the state will host events this month to raise awareness about domestic violence, its impact on our community and resources available to help victims and their children.

DVAM events will also honor those who have lost their lives to domestic violence. In Cherokee County, that commemoration will be hosted by the Cherokee Family Violence Center on Tuesday, Oct. 13.

The organization, a domestic violence program serving Cherokee County and a member agency of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence, will hold its annual Candlelight Vigil at 7 p.m. at Cannon Park in downtown Canton.

“Domestic violence far too often takes the life of those living it,“ said CFVC Executive Director Meg Rogers. “It devastates families, communities and our own sense of feeling safe in our home. The candlelight vigil is one opportunity we have every year to not only pay respects to those victims that we lost, but to truly honor those survivors of abuse who could just as easily become a statistic.”

Domestic Violence Awareness Month was first observed in October 1981 as the Day of Unity by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The purpose was to connect advocates across the nation who were working to end violence against women and their children.

Across the country, one in three women and one in four men have been victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Additionally, 1 in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90 percent of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence.

“Unfortunately, Georgia residents experience domestic violence in line with national statistics,” said Jan Christiansen, executive eirector of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “GCADV is proud of the work done by domestic violence and community organizations across the state to provide safety and healing for victims and their children. We want to ensure that no victim lives in silence and shame due to lack of knowledge about assistance available to her or him.”

In 2014, certified domestic violence agencies across Georgia served over 30,000 adult victims of domestic violence and their children. The Cherokee Family Violence Center received over 1,500 calls on its 24-hour crisis hotline in 2014 and provided over 4,000 nights of safety for women and children in our emergency shelter.

For more information about Cherokee Family Violence Center, visit www.cfvc.org or contact the crisis hotline at 1-800-33HAVEN or the multicultural hotline at 770-720-7050.

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