Domestic Violence Does Not Depend

Domestic violence does not depend on social status, gender, age, education or age. It is a public enemy that works mostly behind closed doors and curtains and is less likely than any other crime to be exposed as such by the victim or victims. In the field of domestic violence, Texas is surpassed only by California in the number of reported abused family members.

Generally, a person who is well informed is less likely to fall the victim of abuses of any kind. but, domestic violence deals with more than just on e level in a person's character. The emotional side involved is strongly influences a victim of domestic violence decision to expose the abuser. Furthermore, when the victim is underage, the ability to decide what is right or wrong is less developed, making the child or teenager even more exposed to continual abuse at home.

Women's shelters are an efficient way of offering an abused woman and her children a temporary solution in the case they were abused at home. Bat Area Turning Point in Webster Texas is an organization that offers shelter for abuse women and their families. As the organization advertizes on its website, it offers "recovery solutions" as well as "violence prevention strategies." Although the intervention in crisis and the help of those who are suffering from abuse at home are crucial, the prevention part appears to be the most important aspect in the efforts made by such organizations. Statistical data shows that "1,130,164 Texas women were battered in 2008"(Texas Health and Human Services Commission, report 2008) alone and further more, "more than 1,303 Texas women were killed by an intimate partner from 1998-2008"(idem).

According to statistics, the efforts made during the last ten years in the direction of prevention of domestic abuse in Texas bore no significant results. The numbers of the yearly abused victims are slowly, but steadily increasing. Plus, the numbers of murder cases in situation of domestic violence are also increasing every year over the last ten years in Texas. Matters appear to be even worse for those who are in need for protection and shelter as a consequence of psychological or physical abuse at home since statistics also indicate that the percentages of those who are denied shelter are slightly increasing every year in Texas. If there were 16% of those who asked for shelter who were denied in 2001 in Texas "due to lack of space"(Texas HHSC, 2008), according to the same report, 22.63 were denied due to the same reason in 2008.

The BATP in Webster Texas does not only offer temporary shelter for women and children, but it also involves their residents in educational programs that help them rebuild their self-esteem and learn the basic principles necessary for them to change their lives and start all over again. The organization also offers "a weekly confidential self-help support group for victims / survivors of Domestic Violence and/or Sexual Abuse" (Bay Are Turning Point, Inc., ) as well as non-residential services to those in need and post-shelter follow up monitoring.

BATP claims to have achieved saving a number of man, women and children who sought shelter at their facilities to break free from their abusers and start a new life. Not only did the organization help domestic violence victims recover and change their life, but it also found ways of financially and morally supporting them throughout their crisis period as well as later, when they started building a new stage of their life.