Guest Contributor: Professor Kristin Kalsem
Intimate partner abuse is a priority issue for the University of Cincinnati College of Law’s Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice. Its Domestic Violence and Civil Protection Order Clinic has served more than 1400 survivors and its research and work with community partners has resulted in more than 375 judges and magistrates being trained on best practices in these cases.
Intimate partner abuse is a fact of life in too many homes. The statistics are staggering. Domestic violence hotlines nationwide receive more than 20,000 calls on a typical day. Intimate partner violence accounts for 15% of all violent crime and one in three female murder victims are killed by intimate partners. The cost of domestic violence to the U.S. economy is between $5.8 and $12.6 billion each year. (Stats provided by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence). In Ohio, between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018, there were ninety-one domestic-violence related fatalities. In 22 percent of those cases, children were involved at the scene and in more than 46 percent of the cases, the victim had ended or was in the process of ending the relationship. (Ohio stats provided by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network.)
Hanifa Nakiryowa is the proud mother of two girls, a graduate of University of Nairobi, a former H.J. Heinz fellow in the Master of International Development program at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and an acid attack survivor.
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