Author's NotesIntroductionExample 1Example 2Common GroundViolence against both women and childrenWitnessing violence may put children at
riskA growing concern about severe and fatal
casesServing mothers and childrenBarriers to Supporting Women with ChildrenBest interests of childrenFocus on womenRole of the perpetratorBuilding CooperationBattered women's concerns for their
childrenSupporting the mother-child unitConclusionReferencesIn the Best Interest of Women and Children: A Call for
Collaboration Between Child Welfare and Domestic Violence
ConstituenciesSusan SchechterUniversity of Iowa School of Social
WorkJeffrey L. EdlesonUniversity of Minnesota School of Social Work
and the Domestic Abuse Project
Publication Date:
1994Table of ContentsAuthor's NotesIntroductionExample 1Example 2Common GroundViolence against both women and childrenWitnessing violence may put children at
riskA growing concern about severe and fatal
casesServing mothers and childrenBarriers to Supporting Women with ChildrenBest interests of childrenFocus on womenRole of the perpetratorBuilding CooperationBattered women's concerns for their
childrenSupporting the mother-child unitConclusionReferences
Author's Notes
Briefing paper prepared for the conference Domestic
Violence and Child Welfare: Integrating Policy and Practice
for Families sponsored by The University of Iowa School of
Social Work and The Johnson Foundation with support from The
Ford Foundation, Wingspread, Racine, Wisconsin, June 8-10,
1994.
Introduction
Twice in the last 30 years social reform movements have
called public attention to the problem of family violence and
initiated a panoply of legislative and public policy changes.
Even though programs for the prevention of cruelty to
children have existed for over 100 years (see
Gordon, 1988
), it was not until the 1960s when Dr. Henry Kempe
"rediscovered" the battered child that a new wave of public
concern took hold (
Helfer & Kempe, 1968
). On the heels of his work came legislation in every state
to mandate the reporting of abuse and neglect and the
protection of children. Fifteen years later, the resurgent
women's movement uncovered yet another hidden form of abuse:
wife beating (see
Schechter, 1982
).
This briefing paper is about the overlap between movements
to protect children and those advocating the end to violence
against women. It is about the sometimes tense relationship
between child welfare workers and battered women's advocates.
More importantly, however, it is about the great potential
for collaboration between child welfare and battered women's
services.
To illustrate the overlap, our best starting point is with
the families we often serve. The experiences of the two
families below highlight the opportunities for
cooperation---and the potential for tension---between
programs seeking to end violence against women and
children.
Example 1
A woman left her extremely violent husband three years
ago. She went to a shelter with her children where they
received extensive support. They all seemed to do well and
she successfully set up a new life for her family apart
from her abusive husband. Now, three years later, her 13
year old daughter is repeatedly running away from home.
After the daughter became involved with the child
protection agency and the court, a family preservation
agency was also called in to see if it could prevent the
placement of the girl in foster care. As the family
preservation worker gained the daughter's trust, she found
out that the girl's 14 year old brother was assaulting
her. He was also physically attacking his mother and
making repeated threats against her, similar to those his
father had made. The mother had called the shelter, the
local mental health center, and the local hospital
requesting help for her violent son. Each agency gave her
different advice, but none had any services for him. Since
his parent's separation, the boy's performance in school
and his social life have fallen apart. The daughter is
extremely depressed. No one in the family feels safe. None
of the agencies in the community seem to know what to
do.
Example 2
Asked to evaluate a family whose children were in
foster care and to make custody recommendations to the
court, the Family Development Clinic at Children's
Hospital in Boston interviewed a mother who treated her
children well. The children, in turn, were deeply attached
to her. The problem, according to the agencies involved,
was that this woman returned repeatedly to a man who beat
her and sometimes assaulted the children. Because of the
potential danger to the children, the hospital staff felt
it impossible to recommend that the children be returned
to their parents. With the unsettling feeling that they
were punishing a non-abusive mother for a violent father's
behavior, the staff prepared its findings for the court.
Their report, however, was largely unnecessary. On the day
of the custody review, the mother failed to appear in
court. Beaten by her husband on the night before the
hearing, she was in the hopsital. Months later their
parental rights were terminated. This case created an
upsetting tension between the hospital staff and its
domestic violence advocates. "Was it in the best interest
of these children to offer so little to their mother?
Would the case have had a better outcome if the mother had
adequate help?" the advocates asked. Thinking beyond this
case, the hospital staff began to reconsider the questions
posed to them by the domestic violence advocates and
wondered, "Can we really help or protect children if we
ignore the abuse of their mothers?"
Common Ground
These two examples suggest a great deal of overlap between
the populations served by child welfare agencies and battered
women's programs. Several other facts also highlight the
link:
1.research suggests that domestic violence and child
abuse frequently occur in the same family;
2.children who witness violence by their fathers may be
at risk of developing a variety of problems;
3.men who are perpetrating some of the most dangerous
abuse against children are also assaulting women; and
4.child welfare and domestic violence programs serve an
overlapping population of women and children.
Violence against both women and children
Many studies reveal that men who batter their female
partners also abuse their children. Reviewing 200
substantiated child abuse reports, the Massachusetts
Department of Social Services found that 30% of the case
records mentioned adult domestic violence (
Herskowitz & Seck,
1990
). Completed before Massachusetts child protective workers
were required to ask about domestic violence, the study's
findings are likely a substantial underestimate of the
actual incidence.
In a national survey of over 6,000 American families (
Straus & Gelles, 1990
), the researchers found that 50% of the men who
frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused
their children. They also found that "the rate of child
abuse by those [mothers] who have been beaten is at least
double that of mothers whose husbands did not assault
them" (p. 409). The findings confirmed those of several
previous studies. For example, in the early 1980s Lenore
Walker observed the link between domestic violence and
child abuse. In interviews with 400 battered women, Walker
found that 53% of the fathers and 28% of the mothers
abused their children (1984, p. 59).
Witnessing violence may put children at
risk
It is estimated that between 3.3 million (
Carlson, 1984
) and 10 million (
Straus, 1991
) children in the United States are at risk of witnessing
woman abuse each year. Based on the studies reviewed
earlier, about half of these children may also be
abused.
Studies find child witnesses to exhibit more aggressive
and antisocial as well as fearful and inhibited behaviors
(
Christopherpoulos et al.,
1987
;
Jaffe, et al., 1986
), and to have lower social competence (
Wolfe et al., 1986
). Children who witnessed violence were also found to show
more anxiety, aggression, depression and temperamental
problems (
Christopherpoulos, et al.,
1987
;
Forsstrom-Cohn & Rosenbaum,
1985
;
Holden & Ritchie, 1991
;
Hughes, 1988
;
Westra & Martin, 1981
), less empathy and self-esteem (
Hinchey & Gavelek,
1982
;
Hughes, 1988
) and lower verbal, cognitive, and motor abilities (
Westra & Martin, 1981
), than children who did not witness violence at home.
There is also some support for the hypothesis that
children from violent families of origin carry violent and
violence-tolerant roles to their adult intimate
relationships (
Cappell & Heiner, 1990
;
Rosenbaum & O'Leary,
1981
;
Widom, 1989
).
Murray Straus (
1991
) recently concluded that witnessing violence in one's
family "has a wider variety of adverse outcomes than has
heretofore been found. It seems reasonable to conclude
that being a witness of violence between parents puts a
child at risk of a number of serious mental health and
other problems, and that this applies to children of all
socioeconomic levels" (p. 5).
Conclusions such as Straus' may be premature based on
current research. A number of methodological weaknesses
are evident in several of the studies reviewed above, the
most serious of which involves the study samples. For
example, a number of studies have not differentiated
between children who witnessed abuse and those who were
also abused. In addition, many studies have drawn samples
primarily from children residing in shelters. Shelter
residence is a time of severe family crisis and
dislocation and may create more extreme findings than
actually exist. Many children may also show resilience to
the violence by learning to cope with it in a number of
constructive ways (
Peled, 1993
).
Although caution is called for as we interpret the
findings about the impact of domestic violence, several of
the more carefully constructed studies cited above do
raise serious concerns for children and suggest an urgent
need for further research.
A growing concern about severe and fatal
cases
Child maltreatment studies show that while the majority
of perpetrators are women, just under half (44.1%) of the
reported child abusers are male even though women in this
country provide the overwhelming majority of care to
children (
American Humane Association,
1988
). Looking more closely at these data suggests, however,
that men are the perpetrators of the most severe forms of
child abuse. Pecora and his colleagues (
1992
) have reviewed several sets of data and concluded that
"most families involved in child fatalities were
two-person caretaker situations where a majority of the
perpetrators were the father of the child or the boyfriend
of the mother" (
Pecora et al., 1992, p. 110
).
In a 1993 study, the Oregon Department of Human
Resources reported that domestic violence was present in
41% of the families experiencing critical injuries or
deaths due to child abuse and neglect. Generally these
fatal and severe injuries happened to children who lived
with two adult caretakers (
Oregon Department of Human
Resources, 1993
). Of the 67 child fatalities in Massachusetts in 1992, 29
(43%) were in families where the mother identified herself
as a victim of domestic violence. The Massachusetts
Department of Social Services notes that, "in 20 of these
cases, the report of domestic violence was noted in the
case record with no further explanation or intervention."
In half the domestic violence cases, the mother also was
reported to have a substance abuse problem (
Massachusetts Department of Social
Services, 1993
). Although neither the Oregon nor the Massachusetts
report explains the relationship between domestic violence
and the child fatality or severe injury, both studies
indicate a strong need to pay closer attention to the
connection. Interviews with practitioners suggest also
that the issues are linked. For example, several years ago
the Massachusetts Department of Social Services tracked
referrals to its high risk assessment unit for several
months and found that seventy percent of these cases
contained domestic violence (Lonna Davis, personal
communication). Unfortunately the intake and investigatory
workers had identified battering as a problem in far less
than half of those referrals.
Serving mothers and children
Studies have shown that from 43% (
Okun, 1988
) to 70.5% (
Strube & Barbour, 1984
) of battered women eventually end their relationships
with violent partners. These women and their children
often flee a residence shared by a violent husband and
must reconstruct a life for their family as single
parents. Moreover, many women who are abused are often
single-parents assaulted by an estranged husband or an
ex-boyfriend. The Minnesota police reported that almost
half (47%) of battered women were victimized by an
ex-spouse or friend, exceeding the percent of those
married to their partner (44%) (
Minnesota Department of Corrections,
1987
).
Many of the families receiving child protective and
family preservation services are also single-parent,
woman-headed households. National data show that almost a
third (32.5%) of the families in contact with child
protective services are single, female-headed families (
Pecora et al., 1992
). In family preservation programs the numbers may be even
higher. For example, 318 of 441 (72%) families served by
Minnesota's Families First Program in 1991 were one-parent
families (
Minnesota Department of Human
Services, 1993
).
Barriers to Supporting Women with Children
These case examples, data, and research studies suggest
that some of the most difficult cases both child welfare and
battered women's programs confront are ones they confront in
common. Some are two-parent households where the father is
committing severe violence against both the mother and
children, others are single-parent households living under a
continued threat of violence from estranged husbands or
ex-boyfriends, and still others are families in which the
perpetrator is absent but where his legacy lives on in the
behavior of the mother and children.
So much common ground might lead one to expect wide
agreement and cooperation between child protection, family
preservation, and domestic violence services. Yet several
factors appear to hamper the ability of organizations to
cooperate more fully. These include the fact that the
respective movements are at different historical points in
their development, they abide by different philosophies,
sometimes seek different outcomes, use different professional
terminologies, and sometimes compete for funding and
recognition. Perhaps the most important factor slowing
greater cooperation is the way that the two fields think
about key issues:
Best interests of children
Child welfare and protection work is commonly focused
on the "best interests of children." One of the ways to
determine best interest is to ascertain who can keep the
child safe. In child abuse investigations, for example,
workers must quickly make judgments concerning safety.
From this perspective, men who batter and their victims
may be equally problematic parents. If a woman is unable
to protect herself, the child protective worker asks: "How
will she be able to care for this child?" And even though
the father may be a batterer, the worker wonders: "Is it
not the responsibility of the mother to shield her
children from harm?" From this position, it is easy to see
why child protection workers are often more angry at
abused women than they are at the men who batter them and
why battered women frequently are labeled as mothers who
fail to protect.
On the other side of this discussion, battered women's
advocates argue that concepts like the "best interest of
children" are defined too narrowly and that it is in the
best interest of children to keep their mothers safe. Data
from shelters and projects like AWAKE (Advocacy for Women
and Kids in Emergencies ) at Children's Hospital in Boston
suggests that by protecting mothers who are battered, many
abused children are also kept safe. At AWAKE, for example,
the mother's advocate and the child's advocate work side
by side to protect families. As a result, the AWAKE
project reports that few abused children have been placed
in foster care. At follow-up the overwhelming majority
(80%) of battered women report that they and their
children are safe (
Schechter with Gary,
1991
). AWAKE is one model that shows how protecting women also
provides protection to children.
Some child protection workers might respond that they -
and their child clients - do not have the time to wait for
mothers to reorganize their lives so that they can protect
their children. The worker's job is to help protect
children, not adults. According to interviews conducted
for this report, this tension between the way many child
protection workers define their mandate and the way that
domestic violence advocates frame theirs remains
unresolved in many communities. In fact, local and state
leaders in child welfare and battered women's issues
almost never explore these differing perspectives. One
result is that the false but powerful assumption that the
needs of women and children are in conflict is rarely
challenged.
Focus on women
The language and terms used in the movement to end
violence against women often leaves out attention to
children. Many shelters provide far more services to women
than they do to children although, as domestic violence
organizations acquire more public and private funding,
resources for children's programs increase, in some
programs dramatically. Ironically, most battered women's
shelters now provide at least minimal programming for
children, and some have extensive support, counseling and
prevention efforts under way. Many of these services,
however, remain invisible to the child welfare
community.
Historically, the goal of battered women's
organizations has been to empower their clients. As part
of their mission, shelters see their role as protecting
women from assaultive men and from community agencies that
revictimize them. One result is that battered women's
programs often offer blistering critiques of child
protection agencies (CPS) in their communities. Domestic
violence groups have claimed that CPS agencies often blame
women for the violence that men perpetrate against
children, and hold men and women to different,
gender-biased standards of care for children. Some
shelters have defined their mandate as protecting battered
women from CPS and refused to cooperate with child welfare
agencies except in the most extreme cases of child
abuse.
For its part, the child protection system in many
communities has accused shelter advocates of being
unconcerned about children and blindly loyal to women -
even to those who expose their children to serious harm.
Child protection workers justly accuse shelters of
ignoring or minimizing the abuse perpetrated by women and
underestimating the harm to children of repeated exposure
to domestic abuse.
Stereotypes between the two fields are only slowly
giving way. Although domestic violence programs have
created hundreds of projects for children and most of them
report child abuse and cooperate with local CPS workers,
shelters are still frequently defined as unconcerned about
children. In turn, many battered women's activists still
believe that child welfare programs are uninterested in
women, though many of these agencies now express keen
interest in learning more about domestic violence.
Role of the perpetrator
Child welfare and battered women's programs often see
their role vis-a-vis the male perpetrator in a very
different light. Many child welfare workers view the cause
of abuse as stress within the family and focus on
providing additional supportive services to "shore up" the
family unit so that it may function in a healthier manner.
The male perpetrator, along with other family members, is
included in the work to create a healthy, functioning
unit. Battered women's advocates most often view the
perpetrator as using violence to exert coercive power and
control over other family members and frame their work as
an effort to provide oppressed family members,
particularly women, with greater power and more options
for safety. Advocates often view separation from the
perpetrator, at least until he has become nonviolent, as a
desirable outcome.
Both child welfare and battered women's programs might
encourage the perpetrator to seek specialized services to
help him change his behavior. Studies, with follow-ups
ranging from six to 18 months, have revealed a consistent
finding that a large proportion of the men who complete a
batterers' program, using a variety of intervention
methods, stop their physically abusive behavior, at least
for the months during the follow-up (see
Edleson & Tolman, 1992
;
Eisikovits & Edleson,
1989
;
Tolman & Bennett, 1990
). Reports of successful outcomes for men who complete
programs range from 53% to 85%.
The apparent success of these programs is significantly
tempered, however, by several factors. First, most of the
studies track successful completers for a very short time,
approximately six months. The only study to do a five-year
follow-up found that 40% of the men who had successfully
completed treatment were back in the criminal justice
system for domestic assaults (
Paymar, 1993
). Second, while many men may have ended their physically
violent behavior, at least temporarily, the majority are
usually reported to be continuing their use of threats
against the women (
Edleson & Tolman, 1992
). Third, many batterers' programs experience very high
non-completion rates. For example, in Edleson and Syers' (
1990
,
1991
) large experimental study, less than a third of those men
who originally contacted the batterers' program and only
half who started the groups eventually completed them.
Feazell, Mayers, and Deschner (
1984
) reported similar findings in a survey of 90 batterers'
programs - one-third to one-half of assaultive men dropped
out after the first session of the program. Similarly,
Harrell (
1991
) found that "more than a quarter of those [court] ordered
to treatment did not complete it...no offenders were
penalized for failure to complete the court-ordered
treatment" (p. 96). These findings are especially
disturbing in light of Gondolf's (
1988
) findings that a woman is significantly more likely to
return to her partner if he has entered a batterers'
program.
When they are part of a coordinated criminal justice
response to violence, batterers' programs may provide
effective assistance to some of the men who complete them,
but it is clear that most men neither go to treatment nor
finish their prescribed program once there. From the
perspective of battered women's advocates, the safety of
women and children must depend on much more than the hope
that the perpetrator will finish the program he has
started.
Unfortunately, leaders in child welfare and in battered
women's organizations have had little opportunity to
discuss this key sticking point between the fields: the
relative optimism of the child welfare system and the
extreme pessimism of battered women's groups about work
with perpetrators.
Building Cooperation
In spite of the tensions between child welfare and
battered women's programs, the commonalities seem far greater
than the differences.
Battered women's concerns for their
children
Unfortunately, much of the current literature focuses
on the negative effects children experience as a result of
witnessing violence, and ignores the concern that most
abused women have for their children, a concern they share
with advocates and child welfare workers alike.
While most studies show that many battered women leave
their violent partners, one of the most frequently asked
questions about the woman is still, "Why does she stay?"
Along with this statement may come the implicit judgement
that the battered woman is inadequately protecting her
children. Interestingly, only a few studies have focused
on the concerns battered women have for their children's
safety. Yet, these few studies show that many battered
women take active steps to protect their children despite
the unpredictability of the violence and the effects such
violence has on them.
In her study of 20 battered women, Hilton (
1992
) found many of the women deeply concerned for their
children. In fact, a majority of those she interviewed
left their abusers for the children's sake. Several women
left after their partners carried out life-threatening
attacks and others after their children were threatened or
abused. As one of Hilton's interviewees stated:
He hit me in the stomach when I was pregnant, then he
threatened to beat my daughter, and you don't ever hit my
kids . . . . I tried and tried before, but when it comes
to my kids, no more. (p. 81)
Others have reported similar results in their
interviews of battered women. For example, Henderson's (
1990
) study of Canadian women found that battered women
clearly recognized the effects of violence on their
children. As one battered mother recalled:
It was no good for the kids either, I'd be so bruised
and I couldn't walk around or do things. So I thought,
this isn't any good. I can't be a proper mum for them. (p.
11)
Ironically, it was concerns for their children that led
almost one-third of the women in Hilton's (
1992
) study to remain with their abusive partners. Women
stayed, despite the violence, in order to ensure necessary
financial support for their children or because of threats
by their violent partners to harm the children and wage
lengthy custody battles if they did leave.
In a study of battered women's decisions to leave their
violent partners, Syers-McNairy (
1990
) found that women go through a process of re-evaluation
before leaving their abusive partners. Over half of the
women she interviewed cited concern for their children as
the major factor that led to re-evaluating their
relationships. One severely beaten mother recalled the
moment she re-evaluated the situation:
It finally started to dawn on me that I was not the
only person involved in it was when I left on the
ambulance. They were so scared. And I thought, they don't
really have a dad...And now they're not going to have a
mom? I'm going to die on my kids? This is not fair. I mean
it's bad enough everybody has to die anyway, but I'm going
to choose to do it this way? And I said that was it. I
refused to go back there. (
Syers-McNairy, 1990, p. 118
)
Battered women clearly face great economic, social and
safety hurdles when attempting to leave a violent partner.
The decision to leave or stay often hinges on the mother's
assessment of what will be in the best interests of her
children. A sympathetic understanding of her reasoning and
the many forces that shape her decision is of critical
importance to insuring safety for her and her
children.
Supporting the mother-child unit
Family preservation, child welfare, and battered
women's programs also find common ground when they agree
that preserving the mother-child unit in the aftermath of
violence is, in most cases, a desired outcome.
Many battered women and their children face major
hurdles as they attempt to create a life that is violence
free. As Peled (
1993
) has pointed out, these changes often include a move to a
shelter, a relatives' home, or even to a new city. A move
is often accompanied by multiple other adjustments in a
child's life including a disruption in friendship
networks, a separation (temporary or permanent) from the
child's father, loss of pets or belongings, and entrance
into a new school. At the same time children confront
these challenges, mothers are often facing their own
burdens, adding further to the child's stress.
These changes may create additional physical and
emotional problems. Studies have shown that the number and
frequency of major life changes usually have a direct
effect on a person's emotional and physical health.
Moreover, the greater the number and the more frequent the
changes, the greater is the likelihood of emotional and
physical illness (
Dohrenwend & Dohrenwend,
1974
;
Rabkin & Struening,
1976
;
Vinokur & Selzer, 1975
). Research studies also show that people with greater
social supports adjust better to life changes than do
those experiencing the same events but with few such
supports (
Antonovsky, 1974
;
Bell et al., 1982
;
Caplan, 1974
;
Habif & Lahey, 1980
;
Roskin & Edleson, 1983
).
A number of domestic violence studies bear out these
earlier findings. For example, a recent study by Sullivan
and her colleagues in Michigan (
Tan et al., in press
) found a strong relationship between the mother's social
support and her psychological well-being. Similarly,
Mitchell and Hodson (
1983
) found that battered women with more social support
experienced less severe mental health problems in the
aftermath of violence.
Tan et al. (
in press
) also found that battered women who received advocacy
services expanded their social support networks to a
greater degree than did battered women who did not receive
advocacy services. In the same vein, Syers-McNairy's (
1990
) study of battered women who had left their abusers found
that multiple forms of social support - including
financial, social service, legal help, informal social
networks, and the woman's own personal skills - played
major roles in facilitating women's successful adaptation
after leaving a violent partner.
Maintaining social support for the battered woman and
her children through such major life changes is,
therefore, critical. The need for supporting the remaining
family unit - mother and children - in the aftermath of
violence is consistent with current thinking in the area
of family preservation. For example, Wells and Whittington
(
1993
) have argued that "stability lies at the heart of the
meaning of family preservation" (p. 80).
Conclusion
The kind of social support that might prove most useful to
women and their children is hinted at in the story we
reconstruct below:
When I was eight, I hated my mom. She made us leave our
house my friends, my school and move to a dumb apartment. I
couldn't see my dad for a few months either. My mom kept
saying, "I want you and your brother to be safe. It's my
responsibility to keep us safe. Your dad has a problem. I
need to be safe." Boy, was I mad at her. I hated her for
months.
I'm a lot older now. I think my mom did the right thing
when she left. My dad was pretty scary for awhile. Not many
people understand my mom, and it hurts her. Sometimes she
seems real lonely. But I think I understand. Last month in
school I wrote a paper about my mom. I called her a brave
lady. I wish other people would.
Louise, age 12
The time is right to link and expand the constituency of
advocates for women and children. Despite their differences,
battered women's advocates and those concerned with child
welfare have much in common. We share a common and growing
client population. Each field has a pressing need for
increased public attention, resources, and for policy reform.
As allies, rather than competitors, the fields have an
enormous potential to mobilize constituencies for each other.
Finally, as more and more communities call for coordinated
interventions to stop family violence, agencies will be
required to work together. A conceptual and practical linking
of the needs of women and children would make these
collaborations far more fruitful and change the way that we
think about families.
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The following projects are a
part of the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse
(MINCAVA):MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse (http://www.mincava.umn.edu/) |
The Link Research Project (http://www.mincava.umn.edu/link/) |
Violence Against Women Online Resources (http://www.vaw.umn.edu/) |
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MINCAVA is directed by Jeffrey L. Edleson, PhD (http://www.tc.umn.edu/~jedleson/).File Last Modified:
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2005 Minnesota Center Against Violence and
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