Domestic Violence Facts

• Children in families where there is domestic violence are at great risk of becoming victims of abuse themselves. Studies indicate this group is 15 times more likely to experience child abuse than children in nonviolent homes.
• Over half the children in families where the mother is battered are also abused.
• At least 75 percent of children whose mothers are battered witness the violence. Sometimes the batterer deliberately arranges for the child to witness it.
• The effect on children's development can be just as severe for those who witness abuse as for those who are abused.
• Women age 16 to 24 report the most violence by someone they are intimate with.
• Boys who witness their fathers' violence are 10 times more likely to engage in spouse abuse in later adulthood.
• Female victims of domestic violence are more likely to be slain by their husbands once they are separated from them.
• If every women victimized by domestic violence last year were to join hands in a line the string of people would expand from New York to LA and back again.