Imagine you’re living a daily nightmare: robbed of all your power, scared, your child’s safety being held hostage via intimidation, and you live in constant fear of the person you chose to spend the rest of your life with. He twists and turns your words and intentions, he isolates you by telling you people have said things about you and telling them you’ve said things about them. He completely lacks empathy, but spends copious hours volunteering for organizations in order to create the illusion that he is kind-hearted. He helps at an animal shelter where everyone loves him, but couldn’t care less about the family’s pets – even refusing to buy them food and physically harming them in the most cold-hearted ways. He physically harms you and neglects your children, but is known as a pillar of your community and within his church. He lends a hand to anyone in need – unless that person is you or your children. Everyone loves him. Nobody would suspect he’s the person you live with.
1 in 4 women will be abused in their lifetime. 4,000 of them die a year, of which 75% are killed when they try to leave or after they’ve left. The general consensus is that there is support out there for these women. There is a false perception that there are services: housing, free attorneys, food, etc. for these victims and their children. The reality is that there is not. The reality is that these men continue to abuse these women through the legal system and through the children. People mistakenly believe that no judge would award custody to an abusive man – the truth is that it happens every single day. These men have rendered their victims powerless. They have turned people against them. They have made them out to be crazy. They show up in court with the best attorneys money can buy, while she, left without access to their resources, shows up to defend herself: pro se. She’s scared. She’s alone. She has no knowledge of the law. His lawyer stomps on her. He has pages and pages of character references: church leaders, pillars of the community, their mutual friends, her former friends, even her own family – whom he has turned against her with his charm and *innocence*. She has none of that. She’s lucky to have a small number of friends who’ve stuck by her despite her unwillingness to leave sooner – something some friends simply couldn’t understand, so they assumed it must not be that bad, or that she’s crazy, or that she just wants attention, and removed themselves from her life.
I have one of these friends. She needs help. Asking for help is a life-threatening risk. She must stay anonymous. It truly is a matter of life or death. Please do not ask me to share who this is, just trust me that this person is someone I know and trust. I wanted to help her. Her husband will not let her leave without a fight and her chance of survival and protection for her children depends wholly on her ability to get the representation and restraints necessary – sadly this is something that can only happen if she has the financial resources to make them happen. She is also without a home and/or a reliable vehicle. If you’re in a position to help, or know someone whom you think would want to help her, I’d really appreciate you sharing this with them.
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