October has been Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Domestic violence continues to occur, affecting the lives of countless children, women and men who suffer in silence. The month brings awareness to those most affected.
Domestic violence, the horrendous pattern of abusive behavior whereby an intimate partner inflicts violence on their significant others, is impacting women and men across the U.S. But, Latinos are ready to challenge domestic violence victimization.
Dead Guatemalan women are being dumped in alleyways, dropped by the roadside, and deserted in parks, bodies bound by trash bags, plastic blankets, or left bare for the world to see, abandoned by the wayside like discarded trash.
Sexual violence, in the form of rape, forced prostitution, and abductions, plagues Colombia, and often that violence goes uninvestigated and unpunished — until now. Earlier this month, Colombia's senate passed a monumental bill that will help aid and protect survivors of sexual violence — particularly those who were victimized by paramilitaries.
In Bolivia, 2009, nine “religious” Mennonites were jailed for sedating and raping at least 100 women and girls, in what was being called “the ghost rapes of Bolivia.” And, though these men are jailed, the epidemic continues.
