Hopefully, you’re fortunate enough to live in a safe home with family members who love and care about you. Many people aren’t so lucky. Thousands of Americans have a different definition of home. Instead of being a place of safety and comfort, it’s a place of abuse and violence.
In the United States, an average of 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner. The statistics are real, and they’re scary.
Getting help when you’re a victim of abuse isn’t as easy as you might think. When victims live with their abusers, getting help can be extremely difficult. They risk experiencing greater abuse if their abuser finds out that they are seeking help. For many, this risk includes the possibility of death at the hands of their abuser.
A recent campaign is seeking to make it easier for victims of domestic abuse to get help. It gives them a way to announce the danger of their situation without putting themselves at risk. It’s known as The Black Dot Campaign.
The Black Dot Campaign
When a former domestic abuse victim realized that many other women are experiencing the same pain and torture that she did, she created The Black Dot Campaign to give victims a voice against their abuser.
The campaign raises awareness for spousal abuse. It’s meant to give victims a platform to speak out against their abusers without raising suspicions and putting themselves at greater risk for violence.
The Black Dot Campaign asks victims of domestic violence to draw a black dot on the palm of their hand. This is a signal from the victim to alert the authorities discretely, without letting their abuser know. This campaign allows everyone, even strangers, to have the opportunity to intervene and help the victim get to safety.
The Black Dot Campaign Facebook page has over 1,000 followers. It cautions that the campaign was started with good intentions, but it’s merely one person’s idea for helping victims of domestic violence. It is not a 100% reliable way for domestic violence victims to get to safety, but it may be able to help in a scary situation. The more people who learn about The Black Dot Campaign, the more domestic abuse victims can use it to get help from the public.
Watch the video below for more information about The Black Dot Campaign:
source and courtesy: David Wolfe