Domestic Violence

Domestic abuse is a pattern of abusive physical, verbal, financial or sexual behavior used to establish power and control over an intimate partner. No one deserves to be abused. There is no justifiable excuse for a batterer’s behavior, and ultimately that person is responsible for his or her own actions. Domestic violence happens in straight relationships as well as gay, lesbian and bisexual relationships. It happens in marriages, with couples who are living together and among pairs in dating relationships. A recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports one in 11 teens is a victim of physical dating abuse and one in five high school girls has been physically or sexually abused by her dating partner.

In 2004, 115 women in Texas died at the hands of their intimate male partners, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. For example, in Alton, 18-year-old Reyna Estorgia Gonzalez was found shot to death in her home. She left behind a 2-month old baby. In another case Maria Del Refugio Guerrero, a 54-year-old McAllen woman, was fatally shot to death by her husband, who then killed himself. On average, three women a day in the United Stated are murdered by their boyfriends or husbands, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence, and nearly one-third of all Texans reported severe abuse at some point in their lives.

When speaking about domestic violence we often ask ourselves, “Why doesn’t she leave him?” But in a situation where abuse and threats against your life take place every day, leaving might not be so safe. The victims often have been cut off from their families and support networks, and sometimes they are not in the United States legally. Undocumented women are particularly vulnerable because abusers can use a woman’s immigration status as a means of control, threatening deportation if they report the abuse. The abuser holds the woman’s future in his hands, as well as that of their non-U.S. citizen children.

Victims of domestic violence are not alone. We have local and national programs to help these women all they have to do is make a call and speak up. Jaime Ortiz works with the Violence Against Women’s Act Project in San Juan. The program, created by congress in 1994, changed how communities dealt with domestic violence. VAWA offers legal residence to undocumented victims of physical abuse, in other words undocumented victims of domestic abuse can become legal residents of the U.S. but first they have to go through an application process that is difficult and overwhelming.

Local activists hoping to raise awareness about the valley’s domestic abuse problem have created an awareness campaign, called Voices Against Violence. Domestic abuse is a silent predator, Almaguer said, that people don’t want to talk about or acknowledge. Almaguer is committed to eradicating violence against women and children because he is a survivor of domestic abuse himself. Almaguer and his siblings were residents at the first two shelters that Mujeres Unidas established in the valley in 1978. Mujeres Unidas is a local nonprofit organization

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