Arelis lives in Northern Manhattan and has been married for seven years. She has two children and will soon turn 28. She admits that she hasn’t reached all the goals she set for herself at this age but she is still full of dreams. One of those dreams is to give her children a more promising life than the one she has had.
When she talks about her kids, Arelis, who asked to withhold her last name, has a thousand stories to tell and as many reasons to smile. The same isn’t true when she describes her relationship with her husband. Their relationship is “complicated,” she says, since she has had to sacrifice many things, including her self-respect, so her children would have a fatherly presence.
Arelis has had her share of ups and downs since emigrating from the Dominican Republic. “It hasn’t been easy, but I try to overcome the situation, she said. “He is the father of my children and even though we’ve had problems I know that deep down he isn’t a bad person. You just have to know how to manage him,” she adds, as she puts her three-year-old daughter Ashley’s hair in a ponytail.
Arelis’ friends don’t see her marriage in the same light. About a year ago, during an argument, her husband attacked her. She took him back after he asked to be forgiven. “It’s always the same and I don’t think she’s going to leave,” said Minerva, a friend of Arelis since childhood. “He humiliates her and yells at her and then he asks for forgiveness. I know she keeps a lot of things to herself so as not to bother her family.”
While there haven’t been any additional confrontations recently, Minerva fears that Arelis’ husband’s controlling and irritable character are fuel for a tragic end.
Sleeping with the enemy
Arelis’ story, marked by the nightmare of living in an environment where domestic violence rules, is repeated in innumerable variations across our community. Violence knows no barriers and ignores distinctions of ethnicity, age, and economic status.
On Sep. 22, as hundreds of women prepared for the annual march against domestic violence, a new domestic tragedy rocked Inwood.
Cheyenne Patricio, a young woman of 21, was attacked and killed by her former lover of five years, Roger Crique, 26.
For City Council Member Miguel Martinez, domestic violence statistics in the community are alarming. And as such, Martinez has appealed to the mayor for more help.
“Taking the case of the young woman Cheyenne Patricio as a point of departure, last week we decided to lodge a formal and public complaint. It is of great civic concern to us that during the last week, five women lost their lives in incidents like this.”
Martinez explains that, among other things, more counseling services are urgently needed in order to address this situation adequately and to instruct police officials.
According to Police Officer Charity Oberdier of the Domestic Violence unit in the 34th Precinct, however, officers are doing everything they can. In addition, Oberdier maintains that not only women, but men also work on these cases.
She went on to explain that the police academies are doing a better job with these issues because officers are more prepared. “Many things are changing. A few years ago, for example, a woman decided whether or not an arrest was made when officers arrived on the scene in response to a call. Now, the officer does what he deems most appropriate, and while an arrest is not always the solution, often an officer might go ahead and do it to intimidate the man a bit,” she added.
Oberdier noted that domestic violence statistics from the 33rd and 34th Precincts are more or less the same, between 3,500 and 4,00 a year, but they are high compared to the rest of the city. Many precincts only annually handle between 100 and 500 domestic violence calls, she said.
In terms of solutions to the problem of domestic violence, Officer Oberdier said much more work was needed and that one important factor was the education that children receive at home.
“Generally speaking, I think it’s important that children grow up understanding that this is not a normal problem in every home,” she said. “I also think it’s vital that they not be raised with that machista and domineering mentality, which is traditional.”
Victims are not alone
Hundreds of women struggle each day to safeguard their dreams and dignity against violence. Experts agree that exposing the problem may be, in many cases, the key to preserving not just the women’s well being, but also her life.
Argentina Melo, an expert on domestic violence at Alianza Dominicana’s Centro de la Familia, says that many women don’t come forward with their stories of abuse because they fear the shame of being judged. Others fail to access counseling services because they fear exposing their residency status. “Whatever the reason, we want women to know that their status is not an issue and we are here to help and they are not alone,” Melo said. “It’s important that they know that once domestic violence starts it tends to escalate, not decrease.”
Melo says that domestic violence works in stages. There is a honeymoon period followed by other periods of tension and instability.
“When a man abuses you and returns to ask for forgiveness and you grant him forgiveness, you begin a cycle. First, there is sort of honeymoon, followed by a descent into tension. The sad part is that as time goes on even the honeymoon phase begins to fade and you’re left with tension and instability,” she says.
Marie Lizardo, director of social services at Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC), says that approximately 220 women seek help at the organization each year. “We’re sure that the number of women who keep quiet out of fear of their attacker is much higher,” she says. “We try to help as much as we can, but there is still much more to do.” Lizardo also points out that one of the greatest challenges facing the domestic violence program is the task of educating women and changing the mindset of couples.
For her part, Mireya Cruz, a counselor at the Dominican Women’s Development Center, says that recent statistics compiled by her organization show that women between ages 19 and 25 have the highest rates of abuse.
Cruz says that a number of factors are at play in domestic violence, including cultural issues and even myths regarding the nature of marriage. She argues that many women maintain the flawed idea that marriage is a personal cross to bear. They believe that bitterness, frustration, and even violence are ingredients that must be present in a marriage in order to make it whole. Similarly challenging is the desire of many women to be “saviors” to the men in their lives. “We always think we can change the other person. So we never believe that he can cross the lines of physical and mental abuse,” Cruz says.
Cruz recalled going through the tragic end encountered by one of the program’s participants. The victim had already been separated from her abuser, taking her young children and securing an order of protection. Cruz relates that the woman’s partner appeared at her door one day and convinced her to let him in. “He killed her in front of their children,” she says. “He then took them from the apartment and sent them to school.”
For Cruz, the fact that the victim trusted her killer not to escalate the violence was the line that separated life and death.
